The Guilty and the Innocent
by Kasan Soulblade
Summary: RR Two old friends meet in Pallet, the gym leader Giovanni and a researcher Prof. Oak, and the visit that starts out in the name of guilt becomes the breaking of corruption in one man's soul.
1. Prelude of guilt Giovanni

To my readers,

First non-TOS fic in almost a year. Based more off the TV show then the game, but there is some leanings towards the Red version (as it is the only game I beat of the series). Placed a few weeks after Oak is attacked by Team Rocket. Slight AU where Giovanni and Oak are friends. Since I don't know the ful names of Oak or Giovanni you'll have to live with the origianal ones I made up till someone can offer me the official names.

Kasan Soulblade

The guilty and the innocent,

Chapter one

Prelude of guilt

_Those fools, never would I have allowed..._ Giovanni gritted his teeth, made another circuit on the humble porch. _They should have known. All the others knew of my will_.

"Perrr..."

Giovanni smiled a small guarded smile. Affection was a rare thing in which he allowed only a select few to show him without rebuke. It was a smaller select few from that original select that received it back as tokens or babbles that his wealth allowed him to offer freely and out of eight... Out of eight people in the entire world he would return their affection in the form of a smile, or some other physical gesture.

His current companion was one of those eight.

"Perrr..."

He allowed the furry quad ped to rub against his leg. He ignored the path of white furs that streaked across his orange business pants and tell upon his polished black boots. He considered the animal's unwound tail that wiggled against the air like a music enchanted Ekens. A quick glance around reveled him to be alone so he knelt, grabbed the base of the white length and pulled the creature up. Hind paws dangled in the air, fore kneaded and left marks on the wooden porch. If at all possible the purrs grew louder and those crystal blue eyes slid close when he gave a gentle shake. He released, not wanting to cause pain, and when four paws hit the ground the Persian turned and tried to embed the ruby between its eyes into his ankle. He swatted the pokemon's side a playful scolding to act just a tiny bit dignified. Considering he knew that they were here to see an old friend however, Persian was acting -for him- very clownish, and Giovanni was a bit more tolerant of the clowning then he'd normally be.

"Merow!" For a Persian his companion was very skilled at giving someone the Arcanine-Eyes.

"Fine..." Giovanni forsook dignity for a while, sank to his knees and ran both his hands through the creatures pearl white fur. The purring if at all possible increased. The gym leader took some pains to avoid putting pressure on the scars that marred the skin underneath the silky fur, most of them were old injuries but still old wounds could be the most sensitive.

Persian's ears slicked back, he glared at the door. In less then a heartbeat Giovanni sprung to his feet, wiped the proof of his petting off of his hands by way of a damp handkerchief he kept in his suit pocket, and appeared the cold dignified individual he normally was. For a minute he had forgotten his guilt, forgotten the reason of his visit. Mentally he kicked himself, ordered himself to act as he should have. He took two steps forward to line up with the door, and one step back to give said door enough room to swing open. That was enough time to have his armor and shield in place. While the knob turned he had a heartbeat to reflect that armor was a very good -if archaic- term to describe the hardening of his features.

He used the term as the ancients meant it to be used, as protection and to inspire fear.

The door opened and a youth he did not recognize popped his head out.

"He..."

The friendly greeting was too weak a thing to penetrate the steel facade. There were no kinks for a mere warm word to slip though, no way for the fickle warmth of those who were not welcome to pierce the ice cold arrogance and distance that he wore about him like an accessory. He considered the run down clad youth, he had to be in his early teens, and like all youth of that age he was dressed slop shod. He met those warm brown eyes, his own eyes glittering black expanses that were scyther-blade sharp. He had to give the boy some credit, he wasn't cringing in terror. Despite his facade he felt a chill slither through the steel, pierce his heart with the beginning of dread. A feeling that his Persian reflected with the ever so slight curling of the tip of the tail.

"Is this the research facility ran by Professor Samuel Oak?"

"Y... yeah..." The boy gulped, and Giovanni, a master of reading the levels of lies that those dishonest live by, could sense no falsity.

"Where is he? I have business with him."

The boy bristled at the arrogant tone, not at all liking it.

"Do you read the newspaper?" The boy flared, anger making him brave. "We were attacked by the Rockets and he got hurt!"

The orange clad man offered his flatest glare and the boy lost his nerve, adopted a more appropriate tone.

"Look, he just came back from the doctor to get his injuries tended and he isn't seeing..."

"Tell him Mer Leonardo Giovanni of Viridian is here to see him. He'll see me, or at least set up a time when he is capable of seeing me."

"Giovanni of Viridian... the Giovanni, the Gym Leader?" The boy's eyes nearly rolled out of his head, Giovanni rose an eyebrow and the child blushed. "I'll tell him... Wait here... no wait inside... err..."

"We'll come inside."

"Ri... right..."

Fear to hero worship, ten seconds flat. Well fear _and_ hero worship ten second's flat. The man mentally sighed; it was times like this he regretted opening a gym.

"I'll tell him... your..."

Giovanni caught the door before the boy in his panic closed it on his Persian. Stammering the boy dithered, apologized, but did not do as ordered. It took iron effort to not lose his patience, an apology was words, he held little to simple inane babble that consisted of most words. He was not a forgiving man, would not forget this show of incompetence, but for now he would let it slide.

"Just go." He snapped.

The boy fled.

Alone Giovanni let his eyes sweep over the room. He absently stomped his feet on the faded but loyal rug that had endured over thirty years of service. Little had gathered in his boot to soil the fabric, but still it would hurt nothing to be courteous. Persian followed his master's example, picked his hind paws clean with his teeth and stomped them as best he could. Taking care to stay on the rug, the pokemon grabbed the scratching post embedded in the wall and wiped and sharpened his claws all at the same time. Most others would have wondered why there was a scratching post nailed to the wall along side the door frame. That was simple enough, because some time long ago Giovanni, with Oak's help, had nailed it there for a claw happy Persian who was scratching it and the both of them while the addition was being installed.

_"Hold it steady!"_

_"I am holding it steady! Persian stop it, that's me not the post you stupid fur ball!"_

_"ROWR!"_

_"I am never getting a cat nip covered post ever again!"_

_"He's never getting cat nip again!"_

_"ROWR!"_

_"Ung... Graveler, sit on this lunatic!"_

_"Gravel!"_

_"Meroooow!"_

Little had changed, since the last visit, since the first, all the available walls sported overstuffed book shelves, twin tables at the back wall choked with odd and end bits of machinery... The only new installation had been the visual phone, and that took the place of the old phone that had broke several years ago. Empty was a black rolling chair a bit battered but stil as comfortable looking as it had been when he first saw it, it rested by the visual phone, empty save with memory.He sighed, so little had changed, yet everything had. There, hidden in the shadow of a small tree in a large cheap plastic pot, were two chairs set aside for waiting. They were simple things, perhaps twin remains of an old build-it-yourself kitchen set. Normally he would have never sacrificed dignity or comfort, he had beentaught beter, but in this place many leasons came undone and were forgotten.He took the seat closest to the plant, lowered his head into thetangle of interlaced fingers. His chin found a roost on his knuckles, his eyes found a shield in the dark behind his eye lids. There was no shield strong enough however, to deflect his guilt.

_"Do you read the newspaper?...We were attacked by the Rockets and he got hurt!"_

Oh he knew, that was why he was here. He knew of the attack, because it had occured against his orders, and the second he had those responsible in his grasp... There would be two wrung necks and one Meowth covering for his chair.


	2. mechanics of profit Giovanni

The guilty and the innocent,

Chapter two

Mechanics of Profit

"_Stop drumming your feet boy, it's undignified."_

"_Yes, sir."_

_The boy stilled his feet with a sheepish smile. That smile was met with a glare. Realizing his mistake the boy of eleven sporting wild brown hair and warm black eyes dropped the gesture. The hard black eyes of his sir turned away from him, gazed at contempt at the world around them. There were two long tables tangled with wires and flashing bits of metal. His Father might of found them dull but they looked interesting enough, especially when a few of the more worn wires spat out false stars of electricity! He leaned forward in his seat to watch, knowing that if he gave into the impulse to walk over he'd be beat black and blue. He did not see one of those eyes flick to him, read his interest, and glitter with scorn._

_Being the proper authority figure in the boy's life Raphael Giovanni did his best upon seeing the interest to crush it._

"_Junk, toss off computer parts scavenged from the local trash heap."_

_The child knew the hidden rebuke, hid his curiosity by looking at the sun warmed hardwood floors intently. Pleased Raphael gazed at the watch strapped to his wrist, drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair and looked around the room in building anger. He'd have been less pleased could he pick out and see the defiant strain that tainted his son's thoughts. Of the building curiosity, of the wonder of what a scientist could be building with nuts, bolts, bits of computer chips, and all those other wonderful things scattered on the table. Looking up the boy stared at the strange orange thing in the wall, frowned, and greatly daring tugged on his father's sleeve._

"_D- Sir, what's that?"_

_Raphael would pound him into next weak if he made the mistake of being a child and calling him Dad, hearing the small lapse the man considered doing just that, but decided to answer the question._

"_A telephone, unlike the one in my office you can not see the person speaking, it only carries the voice of the speaker."_

"_Oh."_

"_It's primitive trash, only the poor use them."_

"_Yes sir, only the poor use telephones."_

_Seeing his lesson hit home Raphael drummed his fingers against the arm. They had come ten minuets early; the door had been left open for them. They were early yet in Raphael's eyes the wait was proof that the man was incompetent and lazy. It wasn't fair exactly, and it gave a lot of time for looking around. There were books, books everywhere. All the walls that could hold them did. All the book shelves were stuffed, books were piled on top of the shorter bookshelves, they were a hodgepodge of what ever had been on sale at the time, and while it looked as his father called it 'tacky' he liked it. It may look sloppy but it was a change from the pristine organized and stifling world of the elite he had come from._

"_You would think we were poor fodder, I refuse to be this uncomfortable."_

_Storming across the room the elder of the Giovanni's took a rolling cushioned chair, was he… no he took it for himself. The boy dared not sigh with regret, so he didn't. Shifted in the hard chair and since his father wasn't paying him much mind looked to the plant right by his chair. It was a small plant, he'd never seen anything like it, it was green with veins of red and gold. He reached out, stroked one of the leaves, and the leaf bobbled up and down at his touch. It was springy, but it wasn't plastic. He smiled, tapped it, and it wiggled in response._

"_Do you remember what I told you?"_

"_Yes sir."_

"_Fighting or earth, and if he has neither then just pick something and I'll give you a real pokemon when we head back."_

"_Yes sir."_

"_What are the only virtues, boy?"_

"_Strength and monetary value are the only virtues in a pokemon."_

"_In anything." Raphael corrected. "To have attachments beyond that is?"_

"_Weakness." _

"_Maybe you aren't as worthless as I thought."_

_The man growled, seeing his son crack a smile at the plant and poke it yet again a scowl touched his face._

"_Stop that, you are a Giovanni!"_

_The hand descended and his ears rang from the hit, he knew better to cry, he would be hit more if he cried._

_So he never cried because he didn't dare._

X

"Professor, you shouldn't be walking, the doctor said…"

"Tracy, thank you for your concern, but I am well aware of my limits. You don't live to see my crotchety age of fifty three without learning your limits."

"Professor…" The boy sighed, "Let me get the…"

"Tracy, I need you to go back to the fields and stay there a few hours. Spend some time with the Pidgy with his broken wing, he likes your company."

"Leave you… with _him_…" The boy sputtered.

"You sound like I was asking you to leave me with an infuriated Charizard rubbed in oil."

"Well, I'd feel more comfortable, there's something about him that…"

"Ah he gave you the cold shoulder I take it. Trust me my young friend, he won't hurt me, we've known each other a long long time. I imagine after hearing I was hurt he almost broke his neck getting here he ran so fast." An age roughened voice broke out into a laugh. "Just, to make things easier on him and me, allow me a day to myself. He is capable of taking care of me if I need, which I assure you from the stance given to me by years of experience that I am fine."

"But…"

"And if you could perhaps stay with Mrs. Katchem tonight, that would be the best for us both."

"Alright, if that's what you want."

"Thank you, well you best get going, I can handle on measly door on my own."

"Merow!" Persian head butted his leg and Giovanni smiled slightly, allowed the armor to slid down just a little and walked across the room, reached out, and opened the door. The older man on the other side widened his eyes in surprise then smiled. A smile was the norm for Oak as the icy façade was Giovanni's norm.

Tracy, greatly daring, stared at them both, doubt in his open eyes.

"Professor," Giovanni inclined his head, stared into those steel hue eyes that had nothing of the hardness of the metal about them. His experienced eyes flicked across the man, bandages were hidden by the red shirt and the white lab coat, but still he could see the path they wound around his elder's chest. More obvious was the cast around the left leg, and the crutches that were tucked under both arms.

"Giovanni, it has been ages."

"Indeed, boy, don't you have work to do?"

The boy named Tracy gulped and wisely ran off.

"Please, be a little colder to my aid, I believe having a hall coated in ice would make things much easier on me. I could slide back and forth in stead of hop."

"Let us start again." Giovanni smiled his warmest smile. "Sam, it has been ages."

"Too many ages Leo; and you're showing some grey, it looks very dignified on you."

Giovanni chuckled, ran a hand through his hair self consciously.

"Men in my family grey faster then most, though you should be the one to talk."

"Too much work." The older man ran a hand through his mainly gray hair, hints of light brown threaded the mainly grey locks. "Plus a twelve year head start on you Leo, I have an excuse." The last ended in a pained hiss.

"Of course," Giovanni decided social rank be damned, snatched the black rolling chair and dragged it to the old man. "Sit."

"I am fine."

"Sit." Giovanni glared, when he did so only the bravest, or stupidest did not obey.

Oak wisely sat in the offered chair. Giovanni snatched the crutches propped them against the nearest book shelf, then closed the door Oak had entered from. He stood over the older man, shook his head, and they said nothing for a while, both savoring the other's presence as visits between them both were very rare.

"_Sorry sorry… I didn't mean to be late!" A young man of twenty some years dashed through the door, his stained lab vest only held on by one arm flapped behind him. "Am I late… no wait you're early! Nice to meet you, I am Samuel Oak, and you two must be… Ah the Giovanni's right?"_

_A hand was offered and with a slight grimace Raphael gripped it in his own._

_The younger Giovanni's enthusiasm made up for it. There was something about this man who bubbled happiness that made it a tiny catchy. Seeing his father's gaze on him he tried to muffle the interest and something flashed in Oak's eyes. He saw the suppression of emotion and let go of the young boy's hand._

"_Normally I offer parent to go in with their children to see what pokemon I have, as becoming a Trainer is something of a family affair at this age…"_

"_I'll wait here, he knows what to do."_

_Oak rose an eyebrow, frowned just a tiny bit, then nodded._

"_Alright then. Come along, this way young man."_

_The door opened and the younger Giovanni met his father's cold eyes._

_Remember, his father mouthed to him._

_Then the door closed._

"_So…." The young man seemed rather uncomfortable by his lack of childish enthusiasm. "Do you have a name?"_

"_I have a name!" He flared, nose sticking up in the air in arrogance. "Leonardo Giovanni."_

"_Hmmm all I see," Oak pinched the nose and bought it down. "Is that you shouldn't do that too often, what if your nose is dirty?"_

_Despite himself Leonardo giggled rubbed his nose._

"_That's a little better." The man paused in their slow walk to worm his arm through the final hole. "So why do you want to become a trainer?"_

_Leonardo blinked, father had said that the man would just hand him a pokemon, and that there wouldn't be any kinds of questions at all!_

"_Ummm well D- er Raphael's a trainer so I wanna be like him and be one too?" _

"_That sounds like a question, not an answer."_

"_Ummm…"_

"_I think," The older man looked at him strangely. "We'll both have our answers once we get down this long hall. I swear one of these days I'm going to get a Vaporeon and just flood this hall so I can swim down it instead of walk, much faster don't you think?"_

_Leonardo thought it over. It did sound a lot faster and fun too. "Blizzard, water it and then ice and you can slide real fast!"_

"_Now there's an idea, why didn't I think of that before?"_

"Well…" Oak hissed as he hopped down the hall, there were little comforts in the greeting room, mainly there was no ice, and being a primarily earth and fighting type trainer Giovanni did not have the means to make ice. "It's never seemed this long before."

"That's what you said the last time you were hurt."

Catching the pained tone Samuel looked up, stared at his old friend intently.

"Leo, you aren't at fault. The Rockets do what they will. They are lawless, selfish, and a complete sociopathic, organization. You can't save me all the time; and I'll admit I did lose my head a bit and did the stupidest thing ever."

"You, you are never stupid old friend." Giovanni tried to smile. "You read too much to be stupid."

"I bopped an Arbok on the snout with a rock when it had my leg wrapped up. Add to the fact that when a woman said your pokemon or your leg I said… well a few things I'm not too proud of."

"You cussed her out." Leo blinked. "I never knew you could swear."

"I'm surprisingly fluent in the profanity dialect I've had a very good teacher."

Leo chuckled at the reference to himself and Samuel smiled around his pain.

"I swear Leo, getting you to smile and laugh is like pulling teeth from an angry Charizard."

"You've made several mentions of Charizard's already, what new discovery have you worked out now?"

Oak laughed at that. "I'm as transparent as glass I see. No earth shaking discovery, not yet, but I'm making a study of the residue of their fire breath. It seems as if mixed in the ashes is large amount of nitrogen."

"That might explain the larger explosion then scientists calculate that occurs when the fire breath encounters something flammable."

"It might, but I'm working on making it into a fertilizer. Nitrogen is actually beneficial to most floras."

"But to make it, wouldn't you lose a great deal of healthy land?"

"Thinking in terms of negative profits already?"

"I am a business man." Giovanni scolded in a tone that to others would seem a bit cold, to Oak who knew him well enough he could read the '_gentle_' rebuke that it was supposed to be.

"Imagine using it on areas set up to be already burned to prevent over growth, they're doing that near Celedon and a few other more populous regions."

"Now that has possibilities…"

"I can hear you counting the money already, be quieter about it if you would, it can get deafening sometimes."

"I'll keep it to myself." Giovanni smirked. "_If_ you keep the mental squealing of, 'I finally found something new before Elm did in the last three years!' to yourself."

"I was excited," Oak said in a pained tone. "And how was I supposed to know it was two a clock at New Bark, or that you were even staying at that town? Or that you would be holding a board meeting at that hour?"

"Business does not have a descent schedule, an emergency cropped up and I had little choice but to gather the head of my staff over to tend to it."

"Is it always business?" Samuel asked.

To that simple question Leo sighed.

"Most of the time, yes, it is."

"Has there ever been something that you didn't do for business?" Oak wondered more to himself then to Giovanni.

In response Giovanni pointed to his Persian, and that was response enough.


	3. Grudging acceptance Oak

_To my readers,_

_I made a change on title system for this fic, the names Oak or Giovanni, in the title tell who the main perspective is, it's not meant to be a part of the name, it's just to tell you who's narrating._

_Post script, All review responses will be on the bottom of the chapters for this fic._

_Kasan Soulblade_

The guilty and the innocent,

Chapter three

Grudging acceptance -Oak

"I was lucky." Oak smiled, he had his leg nicely propped up in a chair, ice packs were wrapped in towels to keep the water from dripping into the cast. They wound around his upper leg where a number of small bites had been stitched shut. At least it was some relief from the Hellish pain that the Arbok had inflicted on him, though the pain relief pinned him in his chair for the time being.

"That you survived your own lapse of intelligence?" Leo was sprawled in a chair, his Persian resting in his lap. The Normal type was taking after its master, sprawling in the confines of the lap. He spared the pokemon glance and gently scratched the animal's head. Bad move, claws that could shear through a Golems thick hide that could leave scars on a diamond hard Onyx, slid out and kneaded his leg. Hissing pain Giovanni tried to push the Persian down but the claws only dug in deeper.

"Don't Leo, you know how persistent he is and all you will do is hurt yourself."

"Persian, stop, these pants cost two hundred dollars!"

"Just how much money do you have in your wallet?" Oak asked, the question was so shocking to him that Giovanni answered honestly.

"Four hundred in large bills, and about a hundred in smaller bills, why?"

"And why would two hundred concern you?"

Giovanni snorted. "It's not the money Sam, it's the image. If he has his way I'll be naked from the waist down."

"You'll be invited to more parties that way." Oak said lazily, a humored smile curling his lips.

"If you weren't hurt _that_ comment would have you in a match with me in a heartbeat."

Oak laughed, his steel hued eyes glittering with warmth, had anyone else said that hurt or no they'd either be in a battle or in the hospital with more hurts. Probably both, if he had a weakness it was for two things, wealth and pride.

Giovanni looked around the room. It was _softer_ though the floors were still wood all the equipment had been taken out, and that had softened the room significantly. There was a hardness to a room filled with bits of steel and machinery, now that it was all gone the room was now a mix of a study and library. Once it was the room in which Oak had led him to get his first pokemon, but after the previous attack preceding the one where his Gary and Ash had been involved –that attack had given him about a twenty years span of peace- the bulk of the facility and his house had gotten flattened. Most of the house/research center had been smashed to bits that which remained had been kept as it was. Those few rooms were the final home to Leonado Giovanni though he would never admit it to any, probably not even to himself.

The elderly professor smiled slightly, Leo accused his Persian of being stubborn, Arcanine calling Magmar fire type if he ever heard it.

X

"_Now then, I'm afraid I don't have anything exotic like your father would want you to get." The boy flinched and Oak gently patted his head. "I know his type, I've seen it before, plus you can hear anything going on at the waiting room if you listen at the door." _

"_I'm sorry."_

"_For what, he's a petty tyrannical… erm… I didn't say that." _

_The boy smiled a playful grin._

"_You didn't say anything." He chuckled. "I didn't hear a thing."_

_Chilling, just a mite chilling, that this child was so glib with lying; still if the child's father was a business man then that might explain the acceptance of a trait that most found repugnant._

"_All the Pokemon I have are local specimen just caught, they have all their shots and I gave them all a complete check up."_

"_Are you a Pokemon doctor then? D- Raphael said you were a scientist."_

"_I'm both actually. To be able to research Pokemon I felt I had to know the ins and outs of them, so while I am a certified poke-nurse I decided I didn't want to do that my whole life so I doubled up and became a researcher."_

"_Wow!" The boy's eyes went wide. "No wonder you have so many books!" _

"_Actually…" Oak blushed. "Not all of those are research related…." _

"_Huh?"_

"_You'll understand when you're older. Now then why don't we take a look and see what I've got. I have four pokeballs, and what we'll do is I'll let you pick three, then I'll shuffle them about and you can pick the one you want from that." _

"_I thought I got to pick the Pokemon I wanted!"_

"_Well you see… that would be hard considering I have no idea what I brought back..." _

_The young boy's eyes went wide in shock, a frown took his face and he crossed his arms in front of him. Had he not been so short the gesture would have been somewhat… intimidating._

"_I can't believe Da- er Raphael said scientists were smart!" _

"_I set up traps to catch them since my Pokemon are at the local Center getting their yearly check up. And well when I brought them in I dropped and mixed them all up…"_

"_You forgot!" The boy gasped._

"_N... no!" Oak felt himself going red, "I did not forget! I've just been very busy conducting research on Metapods."_

"_Worms…"_

"_Metapods," Oak corrected. "Are not worms they are in a unique hybrid stage of physical development, evolution going on in place in a shell of hardened thread."_

_The boy's eyes were glazing." _

"_They are interesting to scientists, special."_

"_Oh, because they're worth a lot of money?"_

"_No, money isn't everything."_

_If at all possible the boy looked even more confused._

"_If your father asks you could just say… I had a bunch of pikachu's." _

"_What if I get a pikachu?"_

_And there was a sticking point, he'd wanted this to be a surprise as much for himself as for the child, but it wasn't going to work out that way..._

"_We could, open them all." The boy said weakly, tentative to offer a suggestion to an adult._

"_I guess we could do that." Oak agreed, and the boy blinked at him, and he had a sinking feeling in his gut that the this was as close to the child ever being told that he'd done good in quite a while. _

_X _

"Really Sam, you aren't a spring Pidgy anymore, you should take better care of yourself." Leo scolded as Oak summed up the story of the rockets attacking the facility.

"Poliwag calling Squirtle a water type if you catch my meaning."

"Hugely funny," Giovanni growled, he held Persian by the scruff, extracted the claws and with a grim smile dumped the annoyed Normal type on the ground. "I said stop, I mean stop."

"Merrr…." The glare was flat and promised vengeance.

"Go attack a Ratatta and you'll feel better."

"Those Ratatta's are all research subjects Persian." Oak warned the cat. "A number of them have been given TM's like Blizzard and Thunder, there is however a pile of papers on my office under the red paper weight that need shredding..."

"Fttt!"

"I may be no Pokemon psychic, but I believe that means use the paper shredder." Giovanni rubbed his legs, which were bleeding under the fabric.

Oak chuckled, recalling when Giovanni had to have him firmly extract Persian the first time he'd met him, or rather met Meowth.

X

"_Eek!" The boy ducked, and a bolt of electricity smashed into the air where his head would have been._

"_In now!" Oak barked, the pikachu went into it's ball, the last thing they both saw was… well that all depended where you stood. On Oak's end the tail swished back and forth as the butt wiggled and on Leonardo's end the tongue was stuck out and twin fore-paws wiggled under those large ears._

"_Pika pika pikaaaa!" _

_Then it was gone. _

"_Little bast-"_

_Oak gave a scolding look and the boy gulped and feared him more then the electric type._

"_This one will be staying in its nice secure pokeball in suspended animation until a much later date."_

_Oak put the small ball in his vest pocket, knowing that if he left it out the young Giovanni would probably find a hammer and messily tend to the discipline problem._

"_Don't open it, please…" The boy squeaked. "First the Pidgy pecked me, then the Pikachu shocked me, it keeps getting worse!" _

"_Don't worry." Oak patted the boy's shoulder. "It'll be alright."_

"_But…"_

"_No buts." Oak said firmly, mentally crossing his fingers in hopes that it would be alright. "Now then, you do the honors this time." _

"_Me?"_

_Oak handed the red and white orb to the startled boy._

"_Do you see anyone else here?" _

"_Alright…" Face scrunched up in concentration the boy tossed the pokeball._

_There was a flash of light that solidified into a very small, ragged looking Meowth. Wide eyed, hungry, Oak mentally kicked himself, this was the one he hadn't meant to show anyone until he'd treated the poor creature for starvation and checked to see if it was suitable to be given to a Trainer. He cursed himself for being so careless as to mix it up with the others._

"_Merrr…" It gave them all a flat glare, the claws were out and the small needle teeth bared in what was not a smile._

"_Call him back Leo." Oak said softly, not wanting to be on the receiving end of claws for attracting the creature's attention. "Line up the ball with him and order him back in."_

_Shivering it stood, fur had been stripped from its side, scars of bright red hue ran across the things back. Hissing, it swerved its head looked to him and then to the youngest of the Giovanni's. Seeing the pokeball in the child's hand it's claws scratched across the floor, the boy was going to be pounced, his face ripped to shreds if Oak didn't do something._

"_Hey," Oak picked up a book from the nearby shelf. "Hey you, over here!" He threw the book, making a point of missing, the Meowth turned on him, eyes glittering in rage._

"_Merowr hisss!" On silent paws murmuring soft noises in its throat the Pokemon walked towards him._

"_Stop!" The boy barked sounding years older then he was._

"_Heeehsss!"_

_Leo was again reflected in those glittered orbs of crystal hue._

"_I'm not scared of you." The red and white orb was pointed at the Meowth. "I'm not scared of anyone."_

_That was a challenge, one that the Meowth would, no could, not turn down. It ignored the other thrown book and sat, almost obedient at Leonardo's feet, glaring up at him. There eyes met…_

_Never had Oak seen a Pokemon and a person wear the exact same expression, there was a near audible click like two pieces of a puzzle coming together._

_The guarded hostility in both expressions melted away, and something else came grudgingly to the surface._

_Mutual respect._

"_Meowth." The furry head cocked to the side then almost grudgingly the four legged animal stood and rubbed against the boy's legs. _

"_I take it…" Oak whipped the sweat off of his face with his sleeve. "You'll be partnered with Meowth then?"_

"_I… could I sit down here… on the floor?" The boy whispered, face pale, he was almost shaking._

"_Here." Oak fetched him a chair. "I haven't swept in an age but it's not dusty enough to be fluffy yet."_

_The boy in the adult's business suit smiled at him, let his legs buckle, and leaned weakly back into his chair._

_The Meowth considered it, then decided to hop up and make himself acquainted with the child's lap._

"_Ouch! He's hurting me!"_

"_He's just kneading your lap." Oak explained. "All wild Persian's nurse their young, the gesture of kneading is a Meowths way of showing a form of familial affection."_

"_I'm not this thing's Mommy!" The boy flared looking mortally insulted._

"_Think of it on terms of brotherhood then." Oak offered, adverting his face so not to hurt the boy's pride with his smile. "He's just being friendly."_

"_Ouch… ow… ow… Can't you be mean again? It hurts less…"_

"_Purrr…"_

_Oak let it go on long enough, decided to save the boy, and reached up and grabbed the Meowth by the scruff of the neck. Bad move, it turned and slashed him across the face._

"_Ow! Dang it, you half Ratatta offspring!" He rubbed the red line across his face._

_He dropped the Meowth, who hopped up and bit him in the butt._

X

"Was something I said amusing? I'm not one for telling jokes."

"No… not that." Samuel chuckled. "Do you remember that Pikachu?"

"_That_ Pikachu, the one that nearly killed me? After meeting _it _I take a perverse pleasure with Pikachu trainers in my Gym. Most of them find their beloved mice buried under a number of Earthquakes or Hyperbeams." Leonardo snorted. "How the Hell can I forget that rat from…"

Oak gave Giovanni a long look and the younger man bit his tongue.

"You'll be pleased to know that he was sent off with a trainer three years ago."

"Really?" Giovanni chuckled. "You must aging into a semblance of cruelty to set that rat with anyone."

Recalling Ash's stubborn determination and insistence that he could take the burden of an electric type Oak laughed.

"Let's say he asked for it. Literally. You might also say it was a rather shocking experience for them both. I've _never_ seen someone take a hit from a Thunder-shock five times in one day without taking some hurt. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the Pikachu. As a matter of fact they had a bit of a rough start, but after Ash rammed his stubborn loyalty down that yellow throat, minding the teeth of course, they have become a very tight nit team."

"Hmmm…" Leo looked doubtful. "That _creature _had to be the most violent homicidal pokemon I met, baring none."

"Barring one," Oak corrected. "That Me- erm Persian of yours is absolutely vicious sometimes, I don't think it's above murder if you didn't keep such a tight rein on it."

"He has a temper…" Giovanni began, sounding a touch defensive.

"Merow!" Ears slicked back, tail poof-ed out, the Persian ran to Giovanni and jumped onto the startled man's shoulders. "Merow, meeeeow!"

"What the… what's wrong with y-"

"Look!" Oak pointed to the hall, one of the side doors had been opened by scrambling paws and chattering up a storm was a Ratatta.

"I can't believe you; you've taken on Onyx's without flinching what's…?"

"Ratta!" The creature reared up on its hind legs, crackles of electricity flashed along its small form.

"It's one of the test subjects!" Oak gasped. "He's going to use Thunder, no one's seen a Ratatta use Thun-"

"And we aren't going to stand here and experience it first hand… Golem!"

With the massive rock creature blocking the entrance when the electric attack went off Oak could not see it. Not even wincing, the Golem took the hit and growled low in its throat, awaiting orders to attack.

"Earthquake!"

"Not in my house you aren't using that attack! I'll lose all the flooring" Oak barked and the Golem… well it coughed and shifted uncomfortably.

"Fine," Leo snapped. "Hyper-"

"And if that hit's the foundation beams?"

"What do you suggest then?" Giovanni hissed, his temper was starting to erode under the fact that someone else was ordering _his_ Pokemon about.

"If you must attack use tackle."

"You are implying that I should not answer the insult?"

"Your Persian started it." Oak pointed out, feeling suddenly like he was dealing with the hot headed adolescent that he'd become a very hesitant mentor to.

"Did…" Giovanni realized what he was saying and chuckled at himself. "My God, a few nights without good sleep and I turn into a bratty whiny thirteen year old again."

Samuel chuckled, and Leonardo smiled slightly.

"Some other time we'll get a decent battle in Golem."

The Ratatta stared at where the Golem had been, seeing the hated Persian on Giovanni's shoulders it hissed, eyes narrowed.

No mere Pokemon (Not even one using Scary Face) however could beat Giovanni at the hostile looks game.

"I have four words for you, power plant electricity generator, if you dare attack that's exactly what you'll wind up as."

"Ratta?"

"I've seen him do worse." Oak warned the small creature. "Don't ask what happened to the Horsea that spat ink all over him one day."

Wisely the creature ran off.

"I have been meaning to ask, what did you do to that Horsea?"

"Shish-ka-bob." Leo answered easily, a wicked glimmer to his eyes.

"You didn't!" Samuel gasped in horror.

"You don't know me well enough to tell for certain if I did or didn't do you?" Giovanni dropped the toothy grin and shrugged as much as he could. "Really Sam, you know I hate sea food." He looked up at his still shaking Persian. "You can come down now."

"Perr…" The paws went to flexing and out came the claws.

"If you are going to do that," Giovanni took his seat. "That's what my lap is for."

"Perrrr!" Persian hopped off of the shoulders and into the lap, went back to maiming the pants.

Oak chuckled. "Some things never change."

"Yesss…" Giovanni winced. "Some things don't change… ouch…. There _is_ a scratching post in the next room you know."

Persian did not seem to hear, dug his claws in harder and fluffed up the lap as best he could, then with a satisfied noise dropped all his dignity and plopped onto it's side. Three paws were sprawled in the air the one remaining paw hovered about Giovanni's calf, warning that if there was so much as a twitch on the trainer's part the claws were more then capable of going back to work.

Giovanni sat very still, the master of bargains and cut throat deals, the ruthless emotionless entrepreneur, one of the most powerful and influential men was held hostage by four claws. Oak did his best not to laugh out loud at the pained look on Leo's face, but it was hard.

Review Responses:

Facia: Thank you for your praise on my dialogue and character building. I too have seen the trend of the two types of Giovanni, I wasn't even shooting for accuracy when I started (which is why it's a slightly AU fic) just humanization and the explanation of the "evil" side of him. Not having seen too much of him in the show I only have the game to go on for most of his character, which truth be told doesn't offer too much.


	4. Hintings of the Dark Oak

The guilty and the innocent,

Chapter four

Hintings of the Dark-Oak

"You never told me how it went, your father's reaction to you having a Meowth." Oak commented, they had both been flipping through a few of the books in the study, reading together as they had when Giovanni was much younger.

Leo set aside the book, an intensity to his eyes that was slightly disturbing.

"What do you know of Raphael?" He said at last.

"From what little you've told me he was not above making deals with those of…" Oak coughed, not even liking to recall the day he knew for a fact just how vile Giovanni's father was, "dubious repute. From what the papers spoke of him he was a hard brutal politician and businessman, and as a trainer and Gym leader his was cruel, harsh to his Pokemon and not above killing a rivals. The only reason he was allowed to open a Gym was because he had bribed the officials of the League and kept paying them."

Leo smiled a cold bitter smile.

"He would have found those words as the highest compliment. He would laugh at them when they accused him of having an insatiable lust for power and wealth…" The man sighed. "They were right of course, there is only strength, the strong are those who make the rules so in all the world you find the strong and make them weaker then yourself, bend them to your might, enslave them to your will…. Raphael was a man who believed that heart and soul, what do you think he said when I brought back a half starved Meowth? Worse yet that it was, in his mind, the weakest type ever to exist? He was furious, enraged that I dared decide to keep the weakling."

Persian, who was now curled over Leo's boots hissed as if at a bad memory.

"I didn't know it was that bad."

"You weren't supposed to. I wasn't to tell no one was to guess." Leo frowned, seemed to strain to remember something. "I have a question of my own. There came an…. anonymous witness that reported a few things no one was supposed to know. A law suit of child abuse was filed and some of the witness came from this town. Despite my _Sire's,_" Leo spat the word out like venom, "formidable resources he was unable to track the person who made that call. Were you involved with that?"

Samuel nodded.

"No one may have been meant to see, but only the eyeless didn't see. Myself, and a few others around here saw what was happening and decided to make some racket. I sometimes wish I would have stepped forward publicly, if one of us had…"

"It wouldn't have changed anything." Leo soothed. "Raphael would have ripped your reputation to blood tatters, arranged an accident that would have killed your family, and probably would have butchered your Pokemon just for the sake of causing you more pain. You know his contacts as well as I, with them he could have done anything."

Samuel nodded, feeling sick; Raphael had contacts with the Rockets, had had great influence and had backed them with his vast wealth. In exchange they would in turn do him _favors_, deeds that no one was to hear of, opponents, questioners, witnesses, the all quietly disappeared…

"The only reason I was allowed to keep him was… well it is three fold. One, my Mother insisted on it, second, I insisted on it despite the threat of a beating, and third, I was able to prove not only my strength by Meowth's as well."

"He made you fight him."

"Yes, his Machop against my Meowth, not a pleasant fight that." Giovanni grimaced. "I won by the skin of my teeth, or rather we did when I picked up a large rock and the throw distracted the enemy long enough for Meowth to get a bite in on it's jugular."

"He made you kill…" Oak gasped, horrified.

"Kill or be killed," Giovanni shrugged. "One of the rules, which, when explained to other Trainers made them walk out on the fight. When the Pokemon falls the Trainer takes their place. Raphael never killed a Trainer, didn't dare, that would have exposed him and no amount of money would have swayed the League to let him remain Gym leader. Broken bones, wounds, those could be explained, after all, accidents happen."

Oak shook his head, disgusted. "He was a monster."

"No arguments here." Leo grimaced.

X

"_Leo… what are you doing here?" Oak looked up from taking some notes for the next class. He hadn't seen the boy slip in during the lecture because unlike all the other times before when Leo visited, he was dressed casually. No fancy suit, no diamond pin, no tie even. The child was sporting a pair of new jeans and an over large orange shirt, a simple black backpack was slung over one shoulder._

"_I… I came to tell you Raphael said I could go on my journey!" Leo chirped, for once enthusiastic, and _open_ about his enthusiasm._

"_What?" The young man lost his façade of composure and dropped his notes. "Aren't you a bit y-" Pain flashed in those black eyes, almost as if he had slid a dagger in the boy's side. "Congratulations." _

_Oak changed what he was going to say, could not help himself, he had to respond to that pain. He made some show of looking the boy over, this wasn't a man but a mere child, and that fact became more obvious when he honestly looked at Leo rather then listened to him. He was a child, despite his adult pose and adult dress and even his adult word choice. He had to be twelve; it couldn't have been more then a year since the first visit when the boy picked –or rather was picked by- his Meowth. Oak knew of the boy's shockingly wide streak of maturity, the adult reservation that he showed around others, but still God above he was twelve years old!_

"_I'm honored that you told me." Samuel said at last when he was sure he would not betray himself._

"_You're worried."_

_Samuel winced at the boy's astute observation, but then he was born and reared in intrigue and scheming, little wonder he could read through the open Professor, or rather soon to be Professor when the diploma came in the mail._

"_A little." He admitted and the boy blinked at him, like no one's ever told him the truth. _

_Anger stirred in Samuel, but it was a low anger that didn't touch his expression, a smoldering anger that was in his soul but not known to the rest of him just yet. He would later identify it as anger at Raphael Giovanni for doing his damnedest to squelch all the curiosity and hope out of this child, knowledge of that would come later however, all he knew at the moment was a bitter taste filled his mouth at the pleased shock on Leo's face for hearing the truth._

"_It's alright; Meowth and I got some practice at Raphael's gym before we decided to go."_

_Some of the cheer left Leo, and Samuel wondered why. Fighting in a Gym, even for practice, was a rarely bestowed honor._

"_If you say so." Samuel tried his best to sound like he wasn't worried, decided to change the subject. "Have you had lunch yet?"_

"_No, not yet, I got a lot of… normal clothes to wear and some other stuff just, now and since I was in Pallet I'd thought I'd say hi and let you know."_

_Leo had not said poor, having heard a little of the older Giovanni's pep talks about how the rich were better then the poor… It was almost an act of open defiance against the father. No, it was defiance, and if the elder ever heard of it would pit father against son. He wouldn't have dared that before, he was becoming if at all possible more daring since he got his Meowth._

"_Well," Oak swung a hand over those shoulders, "You came to tell me good news and you're just in time for me to tell you some good news of my own. I…" _

_Oak paused dramatically, and waited until he could see the enthusiasm and impatience peak. _

"_Graduated."_

"_You did... Is that good?"_

"_Of course it is." Samuel laughed. "That means I'm out of school and I can teach adults, maybe open a school of my own or a research facility. You see when you're a student there are important people, deans and teachers and you have to write papers for them. But sometimes because you're a student and you're young they laugh at the papers, don't believe them because in their minds a child wrote them. But when you graduate, which is the academic version of growing up; they start to take you seriously. Plus they call you Professor after you graduate." Samuel chuckled. "Professor Samuel Oak; that sounds rather pompous doesn't it?"_

"_How about, Professor Oak, it's shorter." Leo offered._

"_Hmm Professor Oak," Samuel tasted the title. "I like it. Now then, let's have a bite and a bit of a chat. If I know you you're hungry enough to eat a Snorlax and come away hungry."_

"_Me?" Leo grinned._

"_Yes you." Samuel chuckled. "You're in what we call a 'stage' the wise people say that from twelve to eighteen or so you'll have to eat ten times your weight every day, then around nineteen, maybe twenty you stabilize and stop trying to eat up all the food in the world and live off the air for a few years."_

"_That's not true!" Leo protested._

"_You'll see."_

X

"Heh…" Leo turned the book over so Samuel could the loose paper inside. "This almost looks like your level of artistic talent."

Oak toyed around with the idea of chucking his book, but Persian met his gaze and he flexed his claws. Oak decided against it at that point.

"Gary drew that for me when he was little; I've wondered where it went."

Giovanni turned it over, looked at it.

"Are you sure it isn't yours? It looks just like your chicken scratch handwriting…"

"Hugely funny," Oak grumbled.

"I fought a boy named Gary some time back… Does he have an Arcanine and a Nidoking?"

Oak nodded, "He does, and they are here since he left Kanto and went to Jhoto on a new journey… He mentioned something about fighting a new type of Pokemon when he visited your Gym. I pointed both the boys in your direction, thinking you could do with some challenge, the funny thing was that when he called me after he was absolutely shaken by whatever happened but refused to talk of it."

Giovanni coughed, looked rather uncomfortable.

"Leo, you have been avoiding talking to me of this for a while and I want to know, after all this is my Grandson that it affected, and I am concerned…"

"There was an accident, trust me had I known it was your Grandson I would not have used that Pokemon on him. It was… a new breed I found in Orange Isles, and it was vicious, cruel and completely uncontrollable. It, it had no gender as far as we dared check, very nearly killed me, it annihilated the scientific community that originally captured it… It pretended to be my ally, agreed to fight for me, but every fight it went a step farther and farther beyond the acceptable, the first Trainer it attacked was plagued by nightmares from being on the farthest edge of a Dream-Eater, the second was grazed with a Psybeam and luckily she didn't need medical attention, the third, your grandson, was thrown across the Gym by a full blown Physic."

Oak went pale, dropped the book in his hurt leg and didn't feel it in the slightest.

"He didn't hit the wall, my Machoke made sure of that, and _I_ made sure he got to a doctor and an expert on the after effects Psychic attacks. I kept him in the clinic until I was certain he was recovered, and then I dealt with the problem that started it all."

"Dealt with... you're saying you killed…"

"No, it's too strong for that. I drove it off, I have a group on watch waiting for the second that thing comes anywhere near a city to warn the inhabitants and… have them try to finish what I started."

Oak felt his mouth was dry, he felt sick. This was almost as bad as the day he'd discovered…

He firmly shoved that memory down there were some things better left not thought upon.

"If there is anything you have ever trusted me on my friend, trust me in this. I never meant anyone to be hurt by that... thing."

"If it was so dangerous…"

"In some ways I am not so different from Raphael." Leo said softly. "The allure of having it to myself, of taming something so powerful, it's as much a seduction to me as it was for him."

Oak shivered at the matter of fact tone, the unapologetic stating of a fact tone which Giovanni used. There were times when Leo could chill him, could worry him, this was one in a string of incidents that worried him.

"I would say, if there is one major difference between me and him it is that I have boundaries, lines I won't cross no matter the profit. He never had that."

X

"_Leo, what's wrong?"_

"_No… nothing."_

"_Nothing my rear, your lips split and bloody and you've more bruises then I care to think of!"_

"_Never could fool you could I?" Leo sat down on the empty stool with a hiss. "I… Raphael let me go on the journey on one condition, that when I finished with the League I come back home and… And fight him for right of the Gym."_

_Oak sat down, his eyes wide in horror. He'd heard some rumors of Pokemon and Trainers even, who came out at deaths door. Those rumors were true, so Leo proved with his state, but how could Raphael do that to his own son?_

"_Do you need to go to the hospital?"_

_Stupid question, the Gym was at least five miles away from here, Leo had probably walked that far to get here, and it looked like there were no problems save a little pain._

"_No," Leo smiled, blood slid from his split lip. "Thanks for askin' though…"_

"_Leo." Samuel gripped the younger man's shoulders. He was nearly Oak's height now, and despite the thrashing he'd gone through was still the picture of the college hero. Well built, well muscled yet not over, with a square face and sharp features. No few girls had broken their hearts over him. What none of them knew was the scars over that heart they so pined over. Oak knew, only a little, he was after all the boy's mentor, and as close to a friend as the b- young man allowed any to get. "What. Happened."_

"_Nothing..."_

"_Leo," Oak felt tears stinging in his eyes. "You promised me long ago that you'd trust me, now I want to know what happened."_

"_I can't tell you all of it, or you'd hate me, I can't tell you all of it because it'd make you break your promise, so I can't tell you the whole truth."_

"_Tell me what you dare then."_

_There were walls, barriers, they kept them apart but Leo kept them up because he said it'd keep the Rockets off of him. It would allow him to live. And recalling the somber thirteen year old who'd said that… Oak knew it was no lie._

_So young, he had seen death of Pokemon and human, and fought to the death against those who his father backed to save the life of his only friend. Each death, each scheme, left a scar made the walls higher, yet those walls kept death away and they both endured them. Leo did not shrug off Samuel's near embrace; seemed to need to be touched, to know he was real and not an illusion. He was in shock, that shock the horror of what had happened filled his eyes with darkness, made them glitter so hard. Like twin blades, they ripped apart all they saw with their scorn as the final illusion of life being sacred, of his life being sacred, was cast aside._

"_Leo..." Oak shivered as Raphael's eyes looked back at him. "Let's go somewhere a little less open, I'll leave a note for my students and if you're up to it we'll walk to my house."_

X

"Yes, he was a bastard wasn't he?"

"Profanity Sam, isn't that out of character?"

"If there ever was a man I could hate, your father was it." His leg was hurting and he picked up the book with a grimace. "I am glad you are not your father's son."

"Sam, there are times when I look in the mirror and wonder if I'm not."

"You aren't, you have lines, compassion, and a conscience." Oak said firmly. "Your father never had those things."

Giovanni sighed; a small smile curled his lips. "Hearing you say that, it helps a little."

"Good." Oak sniffed, "tell me, are you honest enough to remember how to cook?"

"Rather then being the corrupt, money leeching, incompetent businessman who hires all his cooks?" Giovanni chuckled. "I am somewhat capable, but if I burn down your home it's not my fault."

"How so?"

"Because I warned you. The usual?"

Oak nodded and Giovanni picked up the sleeping Persian and set him in the chair, then went off to 'burn down the kitchen' AKA cook.

X

"_We fought, he made me fight him, and I defeated him in the Gym and earned the right to it."_

"_It must have been a hard fight."_

_Leo swallowed. "Yeah, you could say that, it was a hard fight."_

"_Leo. Why do you have a gun?"_

_Dead quiet, the young man took a deep breath and stared straight into his eyes._

"_It was kill or be killed, I fought alongside them, that's the rules of the Gym. It's supposed to teach you… that they aren't worth anything, that Pokemon aren't worth anything, because if one of the most powerful Gym leaders doesn't care whether they live or die… then why should you?"_

"_It's not true," Oak whispered, "tell me you don't believe…"_

"_He made it true, for himself. He made it true for me, for a while." Leo shivered, his eyes haunted. "But it's not true all the time, and it's not true for everyone."_

_Leo no longer possessed the innocence that Oak himself held to, the ideal that all life was sacred, because he'd seen life end, he had made it end by his own two hands. He had taken a step into a place Oak could never follow. They both knew that._

"_Your father, where is he?"_

"_He died."_

_Oak felt his eyes grow wide, his face was cold and he shivered, drew back in horror at the calm tone in which Giovanni said those horrible words. Those words, when he'd spoken them for himself he'd broken down in tears. Yet Giovanni, he did not care, spoke them as plainly as if he was saying the sun was shining._

"_What happened to him?"_

"_After the fight he… called me in his office and we talked. He grew angry and his heart stopped. I called the ambulance, waited with him for help to arrive, they confirmed he was dead, and I left. The… funeral arrangements are in the hands of those he knew best, those who cared for him." The lips curled in a dark smile. "They told me, when I called them, that… I was _ordered_ not to go to the funeral, all of his wealth goes to the companies, which I inherit by the law, but until they make some profit I'm official broke. The house will be razed, the items inside destroyed, so he orders it in his Will."_

_If he had sold so much a rooms worth of furnishing, gave half of it to charity… half of it to any charity and that would be a massive donation._

"_Even in death, he gives nothing to no one." Oak whispered, staring at Leo, torn between pity and sadness._

"_It's how he wanted it." Leo rubbed his hands, the gesture was almost neurotic, like he was trying to clean them. "It's how he was. I don't have anyway to pay you back but… I need a place to stay for a few weeks. Trust me, Raphael was no fool. Not even in his craziest was he gone enough to destroy what he had, even though he knew that I'd probably be getting it. I can almost hear it now, 'a few weeks on the street will toughen you up boy, it'll make you hard enough to do something right, make you cold enough to be what you're supposed to be'."_

"_Well Raphael can just rot in his nice coffin in whatever ditch they toss him in." Oak said coldly. "And he can roll in that coffin for all I care. Like hell I'm leaving you out on the street. You'll stay with me, and I'll hear nothing about paying me back."_

"_But!"_

"_No buts," Oak said firmly. "I'll hear nothing of it."_

_Leo stared at his hands and Samuel followed those lost eyes. There was a ring, a black banded ring with a crimson shape in its center. A letter that was the color of blood…. Oak went pale, grabbed the hand and turned it over so he could see it. A black mount for the crimson "R", the older man began to shake._

"_It was my Mother's." Leo whispered. "Her name… was Rosalyn; well her last name was before she married Raphael."_

_Leo would not look him in the eyes when he said that, could not look him in the eyes._

_He looked to the Persian who was sitting at Leo's feet._

_There was red about the paws and around the mouth._

_It was human blood; something told Oak it was human blood._

"_Leo, I trust you, I am going to keep trusting your word, even though I do have doubts, but I'll only do this on one condition. That one day, when we are much older, you will tell me the truth, all the truths that you can't tell me now because it's not safe."_

_Leo met his gaze, his face haunted, his eyes tortured._

"_You have to promise not to hate me." He sounded like a lost child. "You have to promise not to hate me, to turn our friendship into a lie."_

"_I won't."_

"_Then I can make that promise, and someday keep it." _

X

The tea was over sugared, the toasted sandwich under meat-ed and the spicy mustard too aplenty, and the bread cooked to much on one side and too little on the other.

"No wonder you have chiefs, you'd kill yourself if you tried to cook on your own."

"I survived almost six years of my own cooking, thank you very much." Leo snapped, sounding much like the touchy adolescent he'd once been.

Samuel laughed as Leo sipped at his tea and made a face.

"Maybe I put too much sugar in this." He admitted slowly, rare was it when he made a mistake so admitting to one was a strange thing to do.

"Take a bite out of the sandwich," Oak taunted, feeling a bit like the young man who'd dare Leo to pull some rather stupid stunts long ago.

"I know that tone." Giovanni grimaced. "Dare I?"

"I dare you." Oak grinned and Giovanni looked very worried.

"I _know_ those words, and my cooking can't be that…" He took a bite and chewed it, then looking sick he swallowed. "…bad."

"Milk's on the second shelf behind the butter, that'll deal with the fire in your stomach, the bathroom is where it always is, and the phonebook is supporting the brown chair in my room."

"Phonebook?" Giovanni snatched the plates from Oak's hands; he would not sink so low as to poison the older man. Tease and pull a joke, even sic his Persian on him, yes, poison, no.

"You're calling in the pizza, and I want pineapple you can pick the other topping."

"Topping?" Giovanni raised an eyebrow, he looked confused, and Oak did his best not to laugh.

"Yes, when you order pizza, which you'll be doing in a bit, you put things on top of them, called toppings. Really Leo, how sheltered were you? You sound like you've never ordered pizza before."

"I haven't."

"Consider it on the lines of a new experience then."

"Last time you said that you had me mucking out a Ponyta's stall!" Giovanni called over his shoulder.


	5. Old Lessons Oak

The Guilty and the Innocent

Chapter 5

An old lesson –Oak

A/N: One chapter, no flashbacks, little seriousness, the world is ending!

"Strange." Giovanni turned the pizza slice around in his hand. "It tastes good, but it's so... strange looking."

Oak nodded in agreement, since he was in mid bite he wasn't going to open his mouth to agree, not when nodding did the job for him.

It had taken a long time to explain that eating a pizza with your hands was the best way to do it. It took even longer to get Giovanni to try it. He was a cautious man, slow at sampling something new, he dragged out each motion of the experience eyes forever looking for a way to either use it or avoid completing it if it was not useful. Too many hours working in the kind of cut throat world he lived did that. Eventually he got around to eating it; Oak didn't have to pull teeth, which was a marked improvement from other experiences where it seemed like he'd have to.

There were times he felt more like a dentist then a scientist, especially when Leo was involved.

"How go your classes?" The younger man asked, setting aside the food for now.

"Well enough."

Oak smiled, he always smiled when he talked about his academic courses that he taught. He loved to teach and Leo did not mind listening to him chatter on about it for a while. It was for Giovanni a taste of the world beyond the cut throat, a glimpse into innocence that he was never allowed to have. So Oak told him the antics of his current lot, trotted out humorous tales of his work. Giovanni countered that with scarce few tales of his own, but then his work involved life and death decisions of Pokemon and humans, so there were few humorous tales to tell. Giovanni ran a mass of business, a large number of restaurants ranging from large corporation ran chain restaurants, to seemingly small mom and pop business', he had his hands in several Pokemon research institutes and medical facilities, Oak would not be surprised to learn that more then half of his supplies came from Giovanni's company, Leo had his hands in so many companies, shares, 'friends' working in other people's companies, plus with is wealth he was a massive influence on everything around him...

"A friendly… Muk? Sam, I know poison types, they're all notoriously vile tempered."

"You're a Rock, Poison, Ground, and Fighting type specialist, but your Pokemon are primarily used for fighting, and may I add that after exposed to your strong personality they tend to adopt mannerisms and habits much like your own."

"Not this again." Leo's lip quirked in a tolerant humored manner, it was a strange undertone to his exasperated sounding voice. "The great, human influences Pokemon personality and development speech."

"I have significant proof for my statements, almost the whole of the human and Pokemon psychology department agree with my findings." Sam pointed out. "And you know getting scientists to agree on anything, much less those of differing branches to agree on a theory that would tie both their pet theories together is as hard as making… a group of businessmen to not think about money for five minuets."

Leo saw the hit and took it with a quiet chuckle.

"That my friend would be impossible, money preys on all businessmen's minds for the whole of their life." He took a generous swallow of water, "It is our shadows shadow."

"Now that gives me an idea, a shadow's shadow… Gengar…"

"No spur of the moment Poke-poetry, please. You may be famous for it, but let me tell you it's hellish to hear it over and over again. Bad enough that would-be-literature-experts pick it apart and find meaning under your original meanings and then find more meanings under that," Leo shuddered with real feeling behind it. "But you do not know torture until you get to listen to young people with scarcely a brain in their heads yell at each other about the meaning of a five line drizzle poem."

"Would you rather listen to them talk of sports?"

Leo snorted. "Sports, save gentlemanly 'pursuits' are too low class to quibble over. At least that's what my colleges would say if any would be tactless enough to bring it up."

"There are so many rules." Sam grimaced. "If you wrote them all down I imagine you would have a book long enough to rival my humble library."

"Humble!" Leo laughed. "You have a shelf ever inch of room you have plus several 'show' tables that are coated in books, my God there isn't a topic long enough to match your _humble_ library in length."

"Stop teasing me, I know you're as much of a book Caterpie as I am." Sam grinned. "As I recall an old Charmander that used to be here nearly set you on fire when you mistook him for a lamp and dragged him back for light when he got sick and tired from reading over your shoulder."

"I only did that _once_." Leo grumbled.

"Then you tried to talk me into selling you the Charmander because, and I quote; "he'd make a good portable lamp"."

"I was twelve." Leo growled.

"You were nearly a bald twelve."

"Must we go over that experience again?" Leo rubbed his head. "Because if we do then I _must_ cover that time I came to visit only to find you trapped in tree, an infuriated Dodrio picking away at the seat of your pants because you forgot to give one of the heads it's treat."

"You had to say that didn't you."

"You started it, I finished it." Leo picked up the pizza and helped himself to the rest of his meal.

X

"Muuuk! Muka muka muk!"

"Samuel lo-"

Giovanni winced as Oak was knocked over by Ash's over enthusiastic Muk.

"Muk!" Wrapped in a hug body slam hybrid Oak wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. The poison type was courteous enough not to ooze over the wounded leg or the Professor's head. Everything else was fair game though.

"Get off!" Oak crawled, well tried to, crawl away.

"Muk!"

The hug tightened.

"Can't…. breathe!"

"Persian, use screech."

Oak clapped his hands over his ears, knowing what was to come. Chilling spine tingling waves of noise rolled over him; the noise was mercifully somewhat muffled by Muk's size. The poison type whimpered and slithered off of him. It considered the Persian and a calculating look gathered in its tiny sludge rimmed eyes.

"Don't, he bites, very unfriendly." Oak wheezed, Giovanni pulled him to his feet, or rather foot and handed him the crutches so the older man could steady himself.

"Muuuk!"

"MerOww!"

Giovanni pulled out his pokeball and the Persian who normally despised being recalled allowed the stream of red light to engulf him with a relieved look. Muk's hug fell on itself and the Poison type got up and eyed Giovanni.

"Leo, run." Oak gasped, rubbing his side.

"I don't run from anything." Leo drew out a pokeball. "Nidoking, let's go!"

The massive bi-pedial creature, sporting a scarred up face and a horn that was even now dripping venom towered over all it's other specie, for it was-minus horn- Giovanni's height. Lashing it's thick tail, the smaller horns on it's body bristled, filling with venom. Seeing the pained look on Oak's face Giovanni spared the older man a grim smile.

"I'll try not to wreck your house."

Knowing Leo those words meant that there wouldn't be a wall standing in all of five minuets.

A man with crutches can't move very fast, Oak made history by moving faster then most men his age, he got to the his lab, and more importantly the phone, in a few moments. Jabbing in a number he managed to get to contact the Pokecenter he thought Ash would be at.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Joy, Is there an Ash Katchem avail-?"

"Oh a phone call for me, I got it Nurse Joy!"

There was a long pause where Ash all but pounced on the phone and took the seat left for patents receiving phone calls.

"Hi Professor, how are things going?"

"There's a bit of an emergency, could you perhaps take your Muk, it's rather pressing that you…"

"Ice beam!"

"MUK!"

"Whoa!" Ash craned his neck to look over Oak's shoulder; from the flashes of color that bathed the screen from time to time the battle in the other room had reached rather apocalyptic proportions. "What's going on?"

"I have a rather… sensitive guest and your Muk was over friendly." Oak ducked the stray thread of Ice-Beam that was reflected into the room by a well aimed sludge bomb. "I really really need you to take Muk, now if at all possible."

"Ok… umm how about… let's see the Gym's a bug type so…"

"Physic, Grass, anything Ash, just hurry!"

"OK, I'll trade Bulbasaur for Muk then!"

"Herd him to the door!" Oak called to Leo, fishing out Muk's pokeball. There was no way to not know which one it was, since it smelled strongly of sewer.

"Professor, what's going on, who's this guest of yours? I didn't know you had any friends!"

Oak spared a long withering glance for the boy, Giovanni must be rubbing off because all he had to do was glare, Ash blushed and stammered an apology. Either Giovanni was rubbing off in a bad way or the Misty girl from Cerulean had finally taught Ash some manners.

"Muk?"

And that was the last cry as Muk disappeared into his pokeball. The ice beam however did not stop and it smashed into the flooring. There was a loud crack as the wood split under the force of the attack.

"Professor Oak, are you OK? That didn't sound good."

"I'm fine. I'm ready to make the exchange now." Sounding cool calm and collected was never so hard before.

"Alright, I'm ready to go too!"

The device seemed to warm up at a crawl, after a few moments there was a flash of light and almost simultaneously the trainer and teacher pulled their respective pokeballs from the device.

"Alright, I've got Muk here!"

Oak stared at the Squirtle, who looked completely confused to be here.

"Ash… you sent the wrong pokeball."

"Squirt?" The blue creature stretched and yawned, scratching the back of it's shell with sharp little claws.

"Opps, sorry Professor. OK now I got Bulbasaur's pokeball, this time it'll go right."

It took two more times before Ash sent the right one, and he was aware that from the other room, watching with humor glittering in his dark eyes, was Leo. Oak was probably going to be rained with teasing comments for an hour about the intelligence of younger trainers these days, well it would give them something to talk about, until he found the hammer and spare lengths of wood that he kept on hand for such crisis. Leo was, after all, responsible for breaking the floor and he'd fix it, or at least get a good start on it until he could hire someone else to come and do it.

X

"Sam you _must_ be kidding…"

Oak wordlessly held out the hammer and nails, Giovanni took them without even thinking about it.

"You expect me to…"

Next came the ice chisel and a bucket, gingerly Nidoking took those.

"I'll call someone and they can get a start on it in the hour."

"Good. Until they get here you and Nidoking can pick up the shads of ice scattered on the floor ,the broom is where it always is, then you both may begin breaking up the solid ice and dragging it away. Deposit the ice in chilled pools I keep for the water types who favor the cold, then if your help has not arrived yet you may begin ripping out the broken boards and putting in the fresh ones." Samuel crossed his arms in front of him, his eyes for once as hard as the substance they resembled. "You broke it, you fix it, that is the nature of responsibility. As you may recall I had your father pay for and distribute feed to the Charizards I keep here after his thoughtlessness made me lose a bag of their food."

Leo did remember that, had recalled thinking Sam to be on of the bravest men alive to look his Sire in the eyes and tell him threats aside he would be doing it, and if he started now it would save him the embarrassment of having every Pokemon in this facility that was able gang up on him and force him to do it.

Setting aside his pride, as he did so many of his lessons upon entering this place, Leonardo Giovanni went to look for the broom and get started with the clean up.


	6. Dark Destiny Giovanni

The Guilty and the Innocent

Chapter 6

Dark Destiny - Giovanni

Far away there was the sound of machine and hammering, men more adept then Giovanni were working to repair the floor. To add insult to injury they were ripping out the few boards that he had put in.

He had cleaned up, the mark of his labor was upon him though for while he was as clean as he could manage his clothes were not as lucky. Dust and dirt had brushed their fingers against him suit, grime covered his hands and he'd absently whipped them on his pants, add to that that he was developing a blister...

"You've become soft, if I wasn't hurt I'd probably have more done then you did." Oak was going to rib him now about this, but then it was a good counter for the Dodrio comment earlier.

And though it was hard to admit it out loud... he was at fault, he should have stuck with physical attacks instead of trying to freeze the blasted thing.

"You think at forty three you'd have cooled down a little. I can see you being the next Blane and fighting until you are in your late sixties."

"When I start losing my teeth then I'll know its well past my time to step down."

Provided he live that long, considering all his legal and illegal ties to mass wealth it brought him no little wonder that he actually lived to see each passing year. He would not tell Oak of that however, not yet anyways, the time wasn't right yet.

Provided they both lived to see the proper time, and provided they both lived to even respond to the final truths that Giovanni would hopefully live long enough to reveal.

So many what ifs, so many maybes, but uncertainty was the price of living how he did.

Samuel's eyes flicked to the ring that he wore on his left hand, black banded, with a shield like attachment made of polished onyx. One crimson letter stood out on the flat expanse, it was the ring's only mark, its only break from being pure black. He could not stand to see Samuel ask, not again, so he beat him to it.

"Not yet old friend, probably next visit." Ideas stirred in him, impractical, illogical, they would be his last schemes as a member of Team Rocket, but they could not be carried out now. "Tell me… tell me of your Grandson and this Ash boy. They are your last trainers that you have set out and I'd like to know of them."

Sam blinked, normally Leo shied away from talking of Trainers, any Trainers, even those he fought in the Gym. Oak guessed that it had to do with the traumatic battle between father and son that had occurred after getting fifth place in the League. In that he was right, partially right, it was the events after that battle that had soured his outlook on the innocents who comprised the bulk of Pokemon Trainers.

X

_Lights glared down at him like a hundred malicious eyes. Shattered stone, dust held down by the weight of the broken rocks, it looked all to be natural, perhaps sculpted by the hand of some earth creature. Illusions were to be broken to any who lingered, as broken as the earth was under thrown bodies and slashing claws. Red stained a few of the rocks, brown pools were scattered along the floor, and in this room, this chamber, was the smell of iron, sweat and rot. He paced the outer edge, the thin white line of the gym, looked upon the scattered stones and planed, schemed, his Meowth was perched on his shoulders, crystal eyes coolly flicking over every inch of this small shadowed world. For though there was the light from above it fell, the rocks shadows blended together to make patches of night and glaring hot expanses of open space. He resisted the urge to pull on his collar to alleviate some of the stifling heat, heat that was coming to him from his taunt nerves then anything else._

_A door opened then slammed shut and _he_ came out sliding from shadow into light._

_He wore a black suit, was well built despite coming onto the tail end of forty years of life. Muscles rippled under the black business suit, what few lines of color in his graying head blazed, as did his black empty pit eyes. A smile curled those thin lines that served as lips, a thin red slit on that comely face that was lined by what those ignorant of Raphael would call marks of wisdom and encroaching age. Leonardo knew the truth, could see the marks of greed and hate that marred this bastard's face._

"_It's been six years, son."_

"_Don't call me that." Leonardo hissed, "Don't_ ever _call me that."_

"_It's the truth."_

"_We all make our own truths." Leonardo stopped focusing on the area about him, no underhanded attack was coming. This was going to be an open fight then. Good, he rather liked the idea of being able to be open about something just this once._

"_Welcome home." The elder Giovanni said as he spread his arms in greeting. It was a gesture the ignorant would take as an invitation to share an embrace. He was of all things, no longer ignorant._

"_This is not my home, this is Hell."_

"_Fitting, astute, you may do me some good yet."_

"_That's all I was?" Giovanni fingered the gun on his belt. He would not draw it out yet, "a tool?"_

"_That's all you ever will be until you take your destiny in your own hands."_

"_What is Mother then?"_

_He smiled as that blood hungry expression twisted in pain that no bullet could match._

"_She's dead you know." The elder hissed, seeking to strike at his son's one weak point._

_Little did he know that what was once a weak point was now a strength._

"_Why yes, I did know, was she remiss in sending you the information about which hospice she was transferred to? She summoned me when she was dying so that we could talk. I imagine someone merely called you up to ask what you wanted done with the body."_

_Raphael shivered, and Leonardo knew he could cause no more pain then he had now._

_Bitter cold satisfaction welled in him, but he was disturbed to see that as the pain left him there was a dull satisfaction in Raphael's eyes._

"_So you've finally become a Giovanni, it took long enough."_

"_Perhaps, I didn't come here to trade banter with you bastard, I am here to just fulfill my oath, so let's get this over."_

_The satisfaction died in the elder man's eyes._

"_You still have many lessons to learn if you hold to honor boy." He drew an orb or black, he would never use the red and white orbs so he had all of his painted black out of stupid pride. _ "Machamp come!"

_Raphael spat the last, like a master would to a servant in his ill grace._

"_Meowth," Leo fondly stroked the creature's head. "It's time."_

"_Meowth, is that the piece of crap animal you started with?" Raphael laughed. "How fitting, it's about time it died anyway."_

"_Statistics aren't everything." He whispered, watched Meowth as he padded into the center of the gym, unfazed by the creature that was almost ten times its height. _

"_It's time to put you in our place boy… If you're cuddling to that animal still then I've been remiss in my duties. Pay close attention _son_ this is the last lesson you'll ever get from me."_

"_Pay attention _animal_," Leo growled at his father, whose eyes widened at the hatred in his son's expression. "This is the last time the true master of Hell lays down his will."_

_Shaking, for at heart he was a religious man Raphael went crimson in his rage, turned to his Pokemon. "Machamp, hyper beam, crush that thing!"_

"_You know what to do." The young man said quietly. An ear flicked in his direction, an indication that he was heard and they would try this together. If Meowth was hit and signaled he could not continue Leo would use his gun and end this the way he wanted it to end._

_It was cheating, Trainers were not supposed to step in until the Pokemon breathed their last. But what of it, after all, wasn't cheating the Giovanni way?_

X

Tales of courage, valor, honor, they all rolled from Samuel's tongue. Leo absorbed the stories quietly, wondered if Samuel saw the true contents of those tales, looked beyond the events and judged the two boys by their actions and saw such things. But then no tale swayed Sam, he believed in what he could see and had seen personally and very little else.

"I wish I had been able to fight this Ash Katchem, he sounds like a truly worthy opponent."

Samuel's eyes nearly popped from his head at that, quite worth the minor humiliation he'd just been put through.

"Easy Samuel, don't die on me yet old friend." Leo patted the older man who was choking on some water that had decided to go down the wrong way. "It is not your time yet."

"Surprise me like that one more time and ready or not I won't have a choice!" Samuel gasped; his shock was dying, becoming humored amusement. "I'd never guessed you liked a good fight that much. If it ever comes between you and those two, any one of them you'll hold it off for me so that I can watch, right?"

"Yes, I will." Giovanni smiled, settled back into his chair.

"Don't get too comfortable."

"What have I broken now?" The orange clad man sighed in mock annoyance.

"Tradition. Check the time."

Leo did so and laughed quietly.

"So it seems, since you are such a master you will of course take the shadow side?"

"If I didn't you would lose every time."

"I have been doing very well for myself of late; you might find that my skills have improved."

"Who have you found to practice with the dreaded Giovanni?" The older man joked. "I would guess your customary expression would drive off all would be players."

"How have _you_ managed to practice? I hear your over enthusiasm forces your opponents to take you on once and then run screaming when you offer to play again."

"I'll have Ash bring back his Muk."

Leo folded at that threat, and went off to fetch the chess set.

X

"_Impossible! Get up you weakling!" Raphael howled, not brave enough to go over and give his pokemon the _helpful _kick to get it moving again. Looking up from the dying Machamp the older man scowled. "How did you do this?"_

_Leonardo smiled, looked into those furious black eyes with feigned innocence._

"_Do what bastard?"_

"_I am your father and you will…"_

"_I will do nothing, nothing for you, never again. Your son died when you threw him out six years ago with nothing but the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket. Meowth, how are you holding?"_

"_Merow hisss!"_

"_You treat it like it's your friend, friends are worth nothing."_

"_We'll see your move old man."_

X

"Leo… it is opening move, it can't take all that long."

"Sorry," Giovanni tried to smile but Samuel grimaced at the expression, it must of failed spectacularly for Sam to read through it. "There is a lot on my mind."

He rubbed the ring absently, let the smooth band slide under his thumb.

"Fools-mate, really Leo, you always try to pull that one on me and I only fell for it once."

"Only played the fool once… there is some saying like that, I've heard it before…"

Sam nodded, avoided the fatal move and pulled out a knight behind his lines.

"Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice shame on you…."

X

"_Fool me three times and shame on us both. You dipped that thing's claws in venom!"_

"_You finally figured it out?" Leo smirked. "You must be slowing down bastard."_

"_I am your father and you…!"_

"_My father is not you, rabid animals aren't fathers."_

"_You are my son."_

"_And I am damned that we share same blood."_

_Raphael grinned; a crafty look gleamed in the abyss of his eyes. "If I'm not your father then who is? Ah ha this is _rich. _You sentimental fool; I should have killed that teacher of yours. _He's_ the one who's spoiled you, twisted you, made you turn on me; I imagine watching his death would do you some good Leo."_

"_He'll die over my dead body."_

"_That can be arranged, but it won't help you. And I am your father; after all it's my duty to help you. So you'll just have to live and he'll have to die. Wont he? Tell me, does he know, what you are, does he know who we are?"_

"_He knows, as much as I dared tell him, he knows."_

"_You fool, you god damned fool! How long, how long has he known?"_

"_Since I was thirteen, you might be interested to know that I thwarted that little scheme of yours bastard. How uncreative can you get, poison the Pokemon and discredit him as a researcher by counterfeiting documents? You never even checked the authenticity of his notes; you never questioned the fact that he knew so much about forging. You must be getting old."_

"_Onyx!" Raphael howled, shaking in rage. "Let's see your little cat's claws do anything now!"_

_The younger Giovanni pulled out his gun._

"_To my side, protect me!" Raphael howled, cringing back from the weapon._

_Stone flesh, walls of flesh made of stone slid around him. Leo smirked, so this sire was a coward after all. He lifted the gun and aimed, two shots ran out, one for each eye, each ripping into the brain… Screaming the Onyx slumped over, dead, shame it hadn't crushed Raphael under its weight._

_Grinning like a mad man, like the mad man he was Raphael crawled over the dead Onyx's side._

"_Bravo Son, a very good fight!" He applauded like he would at some sporting event; he then went death still as the gun lined up for a clean shot between his eyes._

"_Shut up, God damn you _shut up_!"_

X

"Perrr?"

"It's not all that complicated." Leo explained, stroking the silken head. "He moves his piece, I move mine and if we take the other's monarch then whoever has it wins."

"He'll never learn it. You've talked him through our games for years and he hasn't picked it up yet" Oak grinned, patted the Persian who was like a splash of spilt milk barely contained alongside the board (the tail could be counted as a leak as it's tip constantly twitched over and swatted Oak's last priest). The head faced Giovanni the… less elegant side face Oak. Reaching out with a paw Persian snatched Oak's king and swatted it to Leo.

"You were saying?" Leo smirked; both he and Persian wore the exact same self congratulatory expression.

"You two are two of a kind." Samuel chuckled. "I wonder could I do an EGG on your Persian, he seems very intelligent and might even have elevated brain activity. I've been meaning to prove whether living outside their Pokeballs if Pokemon gain more intelligence then if they were to…"

"Spare me the details of your theories old friend, yes you may do an EGG on Persian."

"Merow?"

"No that doesn't mean you get a Pidgy egg."

"Merow!"

"I poured you some milk and you'll be getting some Goldeen slivers later tonight." Giovanni mock growled, swatting his Persian's head in rebuke. "You're going to turn into a lazy lap Meowth if you eat more then that."

"Perrr…."

"Oh, beg and act sweet now will you, but when I asked you to do something nice and easy for me like rip up some papers you threw a hiss-y fit." Samuel decided to get in on the fun and join in the teasing. "Don't fall for it Leo, he's acting all Growlithe sweet, but it's just a..."

"Merow!"

"That is enough!" Giovanni snatched Persian by the scruff before he knocked over any more pieces. "For that you'll be eating half a dinner tonight!"

"Fft!"

"Those claws slide out a centimeter and you'll regret it." Giovanni whispered in his most lethal tone. "Now go find something to do, the weather's fair, go harass some Pidgy."

"Er hurm!" Oak gave him a long hard look.

"Fine, research subjects right? Well go bother the Magicarp or something."

Oak offered his flattest stare.

"Or you could just attack the scratching post…."

"Merow rowr!" Persian nodded agreeably as those steel hard eyes bore into them both. Tail tucked between his legs Persian padded off, and Giovanni sighed at the ruined board.

"Another round?"

"Certainly," Oak turned the board around. "And since you've improved so much you take the shadow side."

"Huh, ironic that."

X

"_You had me; you should have just finished me when you had the chance." Strapped down in a chair, electricity pounding in him in small spurts Leonardo shook with each shock. He could not respond, and Raphael smiled down at his son. "Stupid stupid boy, you need to learn your lessons again it seems."_

_Drawing a knife Raphael considered his sole offspring._

"_Meowth!" Throwing itself across the room small claws slashed at Raphael's face._

_Snarling in pain the elder Giovanni's hand dipped into a pocked and came up with a brass knuckle, the man punched the pokemon, and the small creature went flying across the room and hit the wall with a sickening crack._

"_Disappointed Leo? I'm not as old as you like to think. I dosed myself with Nidoking and Nidoqueen anti venom before I knew you were coming. You really should have avoided that pokecenter when you came back to Pallet."_

_He had no words, shivered in rage at seeing his Meowth dead by this bastards hand, he'd taken everything now, there was nothing left now but a numbing cold._

"_Damn you, fight me!" Leo roared, tried to rip off the binds that held him down, in response to his motion the voltage went up and he sagged weakly as the electricity roared through him._

"_No." Raphael purred the word, knew how much his lack of honor, of offering his son an honorable end was hurting him. He'd break him, now that there was nothing left and had glimpsed the desperation he had a hand hold to finally break and mold him. "You are my tool, and you will die only when I dub you worthle-"_

"_Hiss!"_

_A blur of white smashed into Raphael, much larger then the Meowth had ever been. Claws blurring, ripping, tearing into the downed man's back. Teeth dripped black, slid into a shoulder._

_They dipped venom…_

_Croaking, gasping as the poison attacked his heart Raphael clawed at his shirt, ripped it off and rolled in agony across the floor. Uncaring at the older human's distress Persian limped to his master, swatted at the mechanism that held him pinned to the chair. Leo spilled from it, no longer being supported he fell and the mess of delicate wires ripped away from his flesh leaving a mess of small burns across his chest and arms. Shivering, he could not close his eyes; he had no control and was forced to watch. From a world away he could fell the carpet press against his cheek, less then five feet away Raphael Giovanni arched, made one last gasped cry, and died._

_Numb began to fad, pain took numbs place. He stared at the white Persian, white as pearls. White was the supposed color of purity. Not anymore, white was the color that awaited a crimson mark of corruption, it was nothing more then that._

"_Perrr…" Bloody faced, oblivious to it Persian rubbed his face over his own, concern laced that throaty voice._

_Groaning the young man crawled to his feet, stared at the visual phone as it rang; he hit the visual off button and then weakly sank into the chair by it._

_No one must know his Sire was dead, not yet._

"_Congratulations kid."_

_That voice he didn't know it, did he?_

"_You did good Leo; it'll be good to get to know each other later on."_

"_Who are you?" He croaked._

"_You'll find out later. Slick shit teaching your Persian toxic like that; you've got an elegant touch. The second I hang up on you, you call the medics, tell 'em he was mad and started yellin' at you. He keeled over and died simple right? Nothing easier?"_

"_Nothing easier." He echoed wearily._

"_First kill, you haven't lost your guts yet, we'll get on just fine. Here's the cut greenie, we'll be with them, and we'll keep any of 'em from nibbling you with questions. We'll arrange it all, he was something special to us so we like to see our mates tended the right way. You, you don't come to our little celebration, lay low for a month, then when things are smoothed out and you're on top of his legal businesses we meet face to face. Then we'll answer all questions and get to really talk. Say the lie once then take his ring and kiss 'em good bye."_

_There was silence; he'd been hung up on._

_With trembling hands he pulled out his cell phone, his voice was shaking almost as bad as his hands._

"_Nine, one, one, this is an emergency… My… My Father… he's not breathing…"_

_The ring, he stared at the black banded ring that was red with his father's blood, a red "R" in its heart._

"_He… he was mad, angry with me and…"_

"_Sir, calm down."_

_Breathing hard Leo knelt, took the limp hand in his own then pulled off the ring and slid it in his pocket._

"_Sir?"_

"_I'm here… more or less…" He swallowed, turned from those unseeing eyes. "He clawed at his chest…"_

"_We have an ambulance on the way, where are you?"_

"_Pallet's Pokemon Gym."_

_He felt cold, his heart felt like ice, he reached up, pulled out a tissue and whipped the blood from his face, walked over and pulled Raphael's table covering off the desk and threw it over the chair that had once been a device of torture._

_He covered the phone with a hand, looked to Persian._

"_Meet me… at Oak's a few miles from his place where the road bends."_

_The, _his_ Persian nodded, those cold eyes did not judge him for this, seemed to actually glimmer with amusement that he was so shaken that Raphael was dead._

"_Give me a day at most; if I don't come I won't be coming at all." _

"_Hisss!"_

_And that could have been 'if you don't come I'll come for you', he had little doubt that it was._

X

"How so?"

Oak moved, made the same taunting move Giovanni always did.

Fool's mate.

"It just is. I'll explain it some other time."

Leo avoided the move, pulled out a knight.

"A taste of my own medicine I see."

"You deserve it." Leo smirked. "Let's see if you can beat yourself."

"You memorized all my moves?" Samuel rose an eyebrow.

"No, but it makes a good taunt."

"You never change Leo," Oak sighed with mock drama. "And here I prayed that you'd be mature at your age."

Light flashed off the ring, flashed into his eyes and made him blink in pain, but still he smiled as he delivered his return volley.

"_Maturity is an ever changing process,_

_Twists twines,_

_Leaves cast to sun and night,_

_Bellsprout."_

"With practice you might become a passable poet."

"God forbid that from happening!" Giovanni gasped in horror.

Oak laughed richly at the terror in his expression –not all of it mock- and moved his piece.

"Eventually you'll grow into some one with a hint of sophisticated taste."

"Me, not sophisticated!" Giovanni growled. "So accuses the man who when he went to a science convention offended everyone present by showing off."

"The presenter was making a serious miss representation of the Mer Jaruon's theories on advanced…"

"Spare me, just go and spare me talk on your theories."

"Oh as if your theories on economics are any more interesting. You nearly bored me to death when you went on and on about selling the surplus of fruit that the various grass types grow, and how to do it in stages to avoid market inflation and reap the best prices by having a larger amount then the local supplier and being able to under cut his prices."

"You could be making quite a tidy profit you know."

"Well this is what I say to your obsession profit." Oak snatched a bishop with his Queen.

"Well _this_ is my counter to your complete lack of practicality on financial matters." Leo used a pawn to take out the Queen.

"I felt that one deeply…" Samuel coughed. "Could you… take that move back?"

"No," Leo crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I am quite pleased with the results of it." He tossed the queen up and caught it.

"Please, increase the gloating; I need to be exposed to more of it." Oak said dryly. "Here's a trade, _businessman_," Samuel smiled making the emphasis playful. "I will listen to some of your economics on how to cut cost with some of my practices and you listen though a few of the more advanced theories I'm working on."

"That will take a few games." Leo admitted.

"If you don't have time…"

"I'll make it." Leo said firmly. "Paperwork can pile up on my desk without me watching it all on its own."


	7. Cost of Defense –Oak and Giovanni

The guilty and the Innocent

Chapter 7

Cost of Defense –Oak and Giovanni

_A/N: Long chapter, I want to answer the question how much does Oak know along with a few other dynamics of their relationship. Probably only three more chapters until the end, and don't worry this all wont be retrospective brooding on both men's parts I'll break away from the flashback style, there will be a fight (maybe two), and other goodies. After last chapter I'm kina iffy on the ranking, does anyone with some knowledge on the ranking system know if I've hit the Mature ranking yet?_

Little conversation came as the first and last game wound down to its forgone conclusion. They'd talked for hours already and once all conversation was done they focused on the game in full.

"Check mate."

"Excuse me a moment," The loser set his hand to a pulse point. "I'm not dead, I'm not dreaming…"

"I won," Leo said smugly. "And it's been a long time coming."

Samuel laughed at that, it was Leo's first win since they started playing long ago.

"So you have been practicing? Well it shows, and the lack of opponents on my end has made me lost my edge."

"Excuses excuses…"

"It's getting late." Oak said apologetically as he checked the electronic clock in the wall. "I need to tend to the Hoot-hoot and other nocturnal Pokemon now so that when they wake they'll have something to eat."

"You're raising Hoot-hoot now?"

"I'm tending and studying the ones Gary brings to me." Oak stood and he could feel Giovanni's eyes boring into him. He knew the man was probably wondering if Samuel was making an excuse to get him to leave. Sighing Oak gave the younger man a long hard look. "Leo, I don't play head games, politeness games, or any other types of game except a good round of Chess. The world you're up to your ears in, the lies, and backstabbing, it stops at my door. Don't ever forget that."

Giovanni nodded, was justly rebuked and accepted the rebuke.

Giovanni would do nothing to offend or anger Samuel, would accept rebuke and so much more from him then he would from any other man. If their friendship ever broke Leo would lose his last sanctuary against the world he lived in. While Oak didn't know had deep Leo was in, he knew that their friendship was perhaps the _last_ thing keeping Leo from turning into his father. It was chilling to see the hope drain out of a man, to watch as the years went on to see hope, and joy slowly die. When you got older you accepted your lot, slowly detached yourself from the burdens of your duty and found things outside work to take pleasure in and become more focused on those. As youth fell to time you accepted it, let loose the reins and let others take a turn at the charging Rapidash that was ambition and gracefully stepped into the background. You tended the last dreams; you fulfilled the last wishes, and settled to enjoy the leisure that took the pain off of aching joints and backs.

If Samuel knew Leo, a stubborn somewhat power hungry man, it would snow in Blaine's volcanic Gym before he settled down for five minuets much less the tail end of his life time.

He was surprised when Leo stood, held open the door for him to pass through, then followed him outside.

"Leo," Oak blinked. "Don't you have business or something to take care of?"

Leo rose an eyebrow, a humored smile quirked his lip.

"I may be a distant, vicious, underhanded, entrepreneur, but I have lines, limits to how cold I allow myself to be towards others, and I'm certainly not cold enough to leave you to do heavy labor when you're obviously hurt."

It had been a long time since Leo had actually helped him outside. He avoided walking the grounds where the Pokemon walked for many reasons. Leo frowned, his dark eyes flicked over a stand of trees, the trunks were slashed by claw but only the experienced could see that as the trees were doing a good job on healing themselves. The ground around them was dead; poison types had left their marks here long ago and still the earth was recovering. Giovanni saw that old odd cluster of trees clinging to life, surrounded by death, and looked away. Samuel knew why, and found it hard to pass this area, but he did every day to get to the feed sheds because he had to.

X

"_Samuel listen to me, I'm not pulling a joke, why do you think I'd ride my Fearow to exhaustion to play a prank on you?"_

"_Leo, I don't know how you know about something that is a private affair, I don't appreciate you spying on me."_

"_I didn't mean too..." Leo blushed. "I didn't, but you have to believe me."_

"_Look, I'll admit those interested in the land were a bit harsh, and about as prickly as a Jolteon on edge, but there is nothing to worry about. I am perfectly safe; you can see that for yourself."_

"_You won't_ stay_ safe if you don't lis-"_

"_Leo," Friendship was strained by the boy's sharp tone; he slid out of his role of friend and adopted his teacher stance. "Don't use that tone with me, it's disrespectful."_

"_Disrespect…" Leo sputtered, eyes blazing. "Haven't you been listening to me at all?"_

_Samuel decided enough was enough. He let some fire come into his eyes and met those black eyes squarely._

"_You have barged into my lab, unannounced, trespassed on my lands without permission, all to break into my house and trot out some wild tale that the Rockets are actually going to kill me if I don't sell my land. Leo you've stepped over too many lines with this stunt, much less broke more laws then I care to think about…"_

"_This _isn't_ a game! I'm serious; I know it sounds crazy but…"_

_Taking a deep breath Oak crossed his arms in front of his chest._

"_Leo, enough! You've never lied to me before this, and you are pushing things too far by starting now. You can stay the night if that will make you more comfortable with the fact that I'm not going to spontaneously combust because some hostile people tried to bully me into making a rash decision. Then after that you will continue your journey. What were you thinking just up and running out from Celadon to fly your Fearow this hard to get here? Are you insane? You nearly killed your Fearow to play some stupid prank, I expected better from you Leonardo Giovanni."_

"_Why don't you believe me?"_

_Oak flinched from the pained tone in the boy's voice; he obviously believed himself, thought this was going to happen and had nearly broke young his neck he'd flown in so hard to get here._

"_I'm touched by your concern." Samuel knelt so he was eye to eye with the thirteen year old. "But it's so illogical that they'd bother me at all. I don't have any rare Pokemon, I'm smart enough to not get any of those. So long as I use only a bit of the land for myself and leave the rest to go natural's way I won't have enough wealth to be worth bothering. I've protected myself with common sense, live humble and they don't bother you, so long as I keep doing so why should they bother me?"_

_Samuel was disturbed to see the pain in Leo's eyes, desperation warred with… who knew what it was? Even for a child Leo was distant, withdrawn, and incapable of honestly expressing more the amusement or calculation. Rarely had the boy show any hints of joy as way of a small smile, only once could Samuel even recall Leo even acting excited like any other child, and even then it had been subdued by some dark thing in his eyes._

"_If I prove it, will you believe me? If I prove it will you listen to me?"_

"_Can it wait until morning?"_

_Samuel really looked at the boy, black rings were under those eyes, the pale face was pasty. He was probably coming down with something nasty, that or he hadn't slept for days._

_He wondered, with a faint chill, if Leo had been sleeping at all, the boy was on his last legs, and the cause had to do with this near hysteria state this strange threat he had heard._

"_Yes, they'll strike in three days, so it can wait."_

_At those words a chill slid up his spine._

"_Alright then," Samuel tried not to shiver. "You can take the bed then and I'll…"_

"_No, they have spies on this place, I can't stay here tonight. I disabled the bugs they planted temporarily, but they'll be back on any minute so we can't meet here. The park, by the gazebo there is a bench." Leo sighed, put a hand over his eyes as he thought. "After you do your morning routine you take a walk right, by the river?"_

_Samuel nodded; a little chilled that Leo would know his routine that well. Questions boiled in him but Leo gave him this look that commanded him to remain quiet and he obeyed. _

"_He never goes to the park, none of them do, so I want you to make sure your walk bring you by there, I'll talk to you when you get to the bench. Do you know where it is? The park is rather large."_

"_I know where it is."_

"_Good, if you get turned around someone can help you. Just say you're curious to see if they painted it a new color or something."_

_Leo went to the front door, a door Oak _knew_ he'd locked._

"_What about you?"_

"_I've slept in worse placed then a park at night before. Don't talk about this to anyone, not even yourself, the bugs will be back on line five minuets tops, you were going to bed, by now you'd have checked all the locks already so just head straight to bed. Don't worry, I checked the rest of the locks before coming in, they rest of the house is set. Don't forget the front door."_

_Then he was gone, stepped into the shadows and disappeared._

X

"I'd have torn it down years ago, but the Pidgy roost in it during the summer and then when Gary sent me a Murkrow it took a liking to the place and now has a nest there."

"Ah." Leo grimaced, rubbed his shoulder as if it pained him.

Little wonder he did.

X

"_Finally!" Small feet stopped drumming the bench, and Leo looked up. If at all possible he looked even more rumpled and worn down then last night. "It can't take that long to feed a bunch of…" The words were cut off by a yawn. "Never mind, you're here, let's go off a little ways."_

"_Leo," Samuel was chilled; his heart felt like it was filling with cold at the boy's almost professional manner. "We aren't going anywhere until you explain several things."_

"_Life or death Sam, if you follow me I promise no matter what it costs me, it'll always be life, but if you don't trust me right now…. The Rockets want something you have, you didn't give it to them, and they hate that sort of thing."_

"_Leo." Samuel quirked his lips into a humored smile. "How would you know what the Rockets want?"_

_Leo looked around, then met his eyes squarely, pain, indecision fell away, he took a deep breath._

"_When I was little, I asked you to not hate me, not for my father, not for what I am. Even though I bet things are really scary from where you are right now, do you still hold to that?"_

"_Yes," Samuel said without thinking it over for a second, and that honesty broke one of the walls he could see in the boy's soul. Tears burned in those eyes, but refused to fall._

"_Raphael is one of them, one of the most powerful Rockets ever. Now come on, if he finds out I'm here he'll know, and then… He'll kill us both."_

_Shaking Oak did so, wondering what in God's name he was getting into._

X

"You won't be doing any lifting with that leg, honestly Samuel, were you going to just drop the bag down and kick it over to the reserve and slash it open with a pen?"

"Err…" Oak blushed, tried to look innocent.

"Samuel, you are a good man, but God you can be a stupid man as well. You give too much without even thinking it over that it costs you."

"Good thing I didn't go into business, I'd be… in the black?"

"It's called in the red, being in the black means you aren't losing money, in the red means you are losing money of in debt, in the green means you are making significant profit."

"So then you'd be in the gold."

"I prefer platinum personally."

"Was that deliberate, that play on words?"

"Not exactly," Leo grimaced, though that might of come from lifting the bag, it probably wasn't however, as Leo was still very much in his physical prime. "Soon I'll be inflicting my bad poetry on my subordinates. Then you'll have every man in all my companies not so quietly planning your demise."

"I'll just merely say that your sudden adopting of poetry as a past time comes from all those charming social evens where the youngsters talk on hour and hours of nothing else. At least you'd never have to deal with that ever again if they turned off of me and onto..."

"The social Butterfree's?" Leo supplied with a chuckle. "Brilliant, may I worship the ground you walk upon?"

"No, just keep up."

"How do your internees survive training period?" Leo puffed, as Samuel set a very fierce pace for a man who was walking on crutches.

"Most of them quit before the month is out and take less labor intensive jobs."

"Like what, construction work?"

X

"_Your father…" Oak squeaked, he honestly squeaked._

_Leo laughed, though there was a hint of hysteria to his voice, that hysteria was firmly clamped down on._

"_How did you figure he'd got rich so fast? Oh wait… you wouldn't know about that would you? Alright I'll start back in the beginning and explain all of this as much as I can, obviously I can't tell you everything but I'll tell you what I can."_

"_How did you find out about?"_

"_He told me." Leo said simply with the candor of a child explaining a fact of life. "I've known since I was old enough to understand. After all if someone kills him then I need to be able to tell if it was a Rocket job or not, and to go into hiding if it is."_

_Leo leaned against a tree, ran a hand nervously through his hair, Oak couldn't take it, he sat down, mind reeling._

"_My great great great grandfather founded the Rockets, after he died my family stepped down from running the Rockets, it wouldn't be a dynasty since those don't last and tend to go bad. If there was power to be earned and someone in our family wanted it we'd earn it the hard way. Raphael, earned it, he killed almost everyone above him and made himself really powerful."_

_Oak was shaking at the matter of fact tone Leo was talking in, he'd answered and asked questions for a class in that tone._

"_No one in our family knows but me, Mother doesn't know, and neither do any of my Aunts or Uncles on her side."_

"_What about the rest of the family on his side."_

"_There isn't any left."_

_Oak swallowed hard and Leo looked away from him._

"_I wasn't supposed to know, about them wanting your land. But I guessed, Raphael has a Gym here after all, and he gripped about how it was an inconvenience to go to Vermillion all the time and leaving the Gym. It was too conspicuous to leave and then have the Rockets run an attack right after. He knew someone would figure it out, so he wants to make a headquarters here, but not in the city, the police find those, and the parks ground is too unstable."_

"_My research facility…" Oak whispered._

"_Bingo," then Leo blushed. "Sorry I don't mean it to sound like that."_

"_I understand, to you I must seem rather stupid for not figuring this out."_

_Leo refused to answer that one._

"_You won't sell; they gave up on that, so now they deal with the problem. They'll kill all your Pokemon, discredit you by poisoning the food. After all a researcher who kills all his Pokemon off isn't ever going to be trusted ever again."_

"_I'd lose the land, I'd probably sell it to make medicine if the poison was slow or rare, or to cover damages if I couldn't save any of them…" Samuel felt sick, yet under the sickness was a bit of humor, it was strange to talk about himself like this, like he was a pawn in some sick man's game._

"_Yep, that's it." Leo looked relieved that Oak had caught on._

"_But then… what can I do, I can't starve them. And I wager if I dump the food they'll get suspicious."_

"_That." Leo grinned, looking very much like a child who was getting a reward. "Depends on how you dump it."_

X

"Oh stop grousing, you've probably lifted heavier weights then that sack." Oak looked up from taking his notes on the feed, he was sitting on a large boulder watching the Hoot-hoots, Murkrows, and the facilities sole Pidgeot come to eat.

"No, I haven't, that thing must way a hundred…" Leo crumpled the bag, and was going to toss it aside.

"Hand me that, I need the barcode number on the side."

"Still doing that?"

"It keeps good habits going, and the _incident_ was not the only time in which I had a bit of bad food on my hands, or as a matter of fact people who've tried to give me too little food."

"Finally, some hint of organization and record keeping."

"Come a little closer." Oak grumbled, "You're just out of reach."

"I believe, I will remain where it is safe." A calculating look came onto his face. "So long have you had that Pidgeot?"

"It's not mine, it's Ash's, and no, he's not for sale. Ash would sooner curl up and die then give up one of his Pokemon, even for any amount of small fortune you'd care to offer. He'd find the very idea insulting enough to challenge you for bringing it up."

"Is it me?" Giovanni said at last. "Or do you seem to gather all the hotheaded over passionate trainers?"

"Are you implying something?" Oak gave the younger man a long hard look

"Me?" Leo's expression was bland, far too bland.

X

"_Do you understand?"_

"_Take the notes, leave the older versions on the bench, you'll age those then the night they do the poisoning. Check the food the next morning then call in to report abnormalities in quantity and texture, call the local Center to supply food until an expert comes out in two days then hand it over to him."_

"_I'll leave you the older notes in an envelope under the door mat after you make the call."_

"_And that will be the end."_

"_I don't know." Leo shivered looking scared. "I really don't know."_

"_Leo, how did you find this out? All you ever said was that you weren't supposed to. Are you in danger?"_

"_Even if I am… you can't protect me, so what does it matter? You better get going now; it'll be a while till I see you again, until its safe."_

_The boy then ran off before Oak could say anything. _

X

Samuel was looking well for a man who just came back from the hospital. But then he'd stayed there much longer then was his want, as a number of papers got mixed up preventing him from leaving right away. Leo had arranged that mix up, had spent many sleepless nights juggling Sam's records, his legal businesses, and his illegal one. He had been pushing himself, even as he basically forced Samuel to not do the same. He closed his eyes wearily; at least with this nearly done he could drop one of his tasks and perhaps now sleep a little easier.

"Leo," Oak looked at him in concern. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," He dredged up a smile and looked at his watch. Six-o-clock, the night was creeping up on him; I would have been eleven in the Orange Isles, where he had been staying over seeing a number of less then legal acquisitions. "It's just a little late for me; since I flew in from the Isles on helicopter to get here I have time shift strain to contend with as well."

"You flew here on a _what_?" Oak straggled. "You _have_ a 'copter?"

"I have the means to rent them, but I value my privacy so I have one of my own, and I can fly it on my own if the situation is pressing enough."

"So that invitation about the yacht wasn't a joke then?"

"No," Leo chuckled at Oak's pale face. "It wasn't."

"What don't you have?"

"A stealth jet," Leo teased, deciding not to tell Oak the horrible truth that he actually did have a jet, and was very skilled at flying it as well.

"Hmmm…" Samuel looked at him for a long moment, took in the somewhat pale face. "You've been over exerting yourself again."

"Too many damned jobs." Giovanni said at last. "Let me tell you my friend, despite the fact that I am wealthy, one of the wealthiest men alive today, there are times I envy you."

"And of course I, being a specimen of poverty because I have no business sense?"

"You don' know poverty until you leave these small communities and see it in the cities Samuel."

There was no graceful way to answer that bitter comment so Samuel did not bother to try.

X

"_What, let me go!" Hands grabbed him, he kicked out blindly behind him, was thrown to the ground._

"_Well what do you know; all white coats really are bugs under their fancy know it all crap. You didn't pay attention when we were nice, and you're too damned smart to trick, so we're gunna end this the right way."_

_There was a click of a gun, Oak froze in terror, knew that it was aimed at him._

"_Don't move." Sneered that hard voice, "Don't even breath. Casi pat 'em down."_

"_Sir!"_

"_So, you're Rockets I take it?" Oak blurted, mentally kicked himself for saying that._

"_How'd you guess?" One of them roared, he couldn't see them as the person patting him down had tied a blindfold over his eyes._

"_Such juvenile mindsets like yours, the melodrama, the callous disregard for life, isn't it obvious?"_

"_Shut up old man!" A hand smashed into the back of his head and the dark over his eyes was pierced with flashing points of light._

_There was another click and he froze, cringed back when there was an ear splitting explosion and a thud._

"_What the H-"_

"_Nido!"_

_Something light padded over him, a small claw sliced through the blindfold._

_He ripped it off even as his ears warned him of the bone breaking under the rush of something heavy slamming into a human. A scream arched through the air as his eyes adjusted the remaining rockets reached for their Pokeballs and found a steel hued hand clasped over their own. Using two hands the Machamp stopped the human's from grabbing their Pokeballs, the other hands descended and two well timed punches to the throat made them slump forward._

"_You, you double crossing bastard! Arbok, poison needle this twerp!"_

"_Meowth!"_

_A blur of white sped off into a grove of trees, rubbing his head Oak staggered after it, ignorant that he had to step over his dead searcher to do so._

_What he saw froze his blood. Holding a gun like he knew how to use it was Leo, he rolled to the side as a rain of black needles spilled from Arbok's jaws. Lazily he lined up a shot with the massive snake that was twice his size and pulled the trigger. A mess of scale and blood went flying into the dark, the creature hiss yelped and swung its tail around and knocked the young man of sixteen into one of those trees._

_Limply Giovanni slid down the trunk, the gun falling from his hands._

"_What a weakling crush this runt I'll contact his Father, bet he'd love to hear you… Well well, screw the kid Arbok, the prey's just walked into our clutches."_

"_Char-bocka!"_

_Paling, Oak took a step back, tripped over a root, the creature leered at him, it's massive hood fanning out. Blindly he groped behind him, his hands closed on a branch even as the tail snaked around to engulf him. He couldn't aim for the head; those jaws could open and close shockingly fast. He swung for the fanned out span, the skin was stretched out, the scales separated slightly, it would be the most sensitive area._

"_Ar!" It staggered back, well slithered back, and shook his head hard, dazed by a hit that would not have even dented its other scales._

_Groaning Leo cracked open his eyes, flinched as he saw Oak staring at him, or rather the red mark on his uniform._

"_Damn it you weakling! Use toxic on him!"_

"_Arr!" The poison glands along the snout swelled as the command was enough to stimulate them to overproduction. Black dripped from those jaws._

"_Nido!" Like a thunderstorm the Leo's Nidoking charged into the grove, his eyes crimson as he bore down on the Rocket._

"_Tangula, deal with it!"_

_Poison needles bristling the Nidoking ducked into a ball and the thorns along it's back sprayed out in the Tangula's general direction. The Rocket snarled, and dodged the barrage._

"_You're really something else kid," the Rocket grunt growled. "You screwin' over wealth and power to save one old man. Arbok finish…"_

_Leo gripping his shoulder in pain with one hand snatched up the gun. Somehow both nursing and ignoring his wounded arm, Giovanni managed to fire._

_The Arbok screamed, whirled onto Giovanni, cringing back in fear Giovanni tried to get another shot in, the tail swatted the gun aside and the head descended. The young man managed to scream, Oak shivered in horror paralyzed by that pathetic wailing of agony. _

_The Arbok pulled away, licked the blood off its lips with forked tongue and began to turn away. A silver arch that was lead by the trembling Giovanni's hand descended, smashed into the poison types skull with a wet crunch. Switchblade buried to the hilt in its brain the Pokemon spasomed once and died._

"_Holy shit, you can't still be alive…"_

_Giovanni managed a grin, a cold blooded barring of his teeth, and turned the gun on the human._

"_Took some anti venom 'fore I came here…" His voice was slurred and his eyes glazed. "Rot in Hell bastard."_

"_You're one of us kid, on our side…" The man pleaded as he cringed back from those empty cold eyes._

"_I am on no ones side but my own."_

_Leo fingered the trigger._

"_Leo don't!" Oak gasped, wanting to get sick at the hate he was seeing in the boy. "Please, let him go, isn't this enough?"_

_The poison was making Leo shiver, made those eyes shine with an unholy light of madness._

"_You have your life, for now." Leo hissed, "Run, don't report to anyone, or I will know and you'll beg for death when I'm done with you."_

_The man bolted, abandoning his wounded Tangula to the wraith of Leo's infuriated Nidoking._

"_Merow?" A small white form rubbed against Leo's leg, then hissed as the legs buckled._

_From standing to his knees he fell, the gun fell to the earth from numb fingers. With a whimper Leonardo Giovanni collapsed, venom roaring through him, a poisons tide that had, for a time seemingly destroyed his sanity. Meowth looked up at Oak mewed helplessly then nuzzled Leo's face._

X

"Do you ever regret, not picking a simple life, something not so… opulent?" Oak asked as they –rather he- hobbled back to shed Giovanni carrying the small ream of papers. "You're a… target your whole life, for the Rockets and every other sociopath with a gun. Is it worth it?"

"Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Power allows me to be aware of many things, in control of all around me. That is something I cherish, control. Primarily over myself, but secondarily over the world around me, power attracts me, I'll admit that freely." Giovanni chuckled darkly at some jest that Oak would not understand. "Most people would call me an evil man for being ambitious, for thirsting for power, but it's not how much you have, but what you do with it."

"What have you done with it Leo?"

Something flashed in Leo's eyes, something dark, secret.

"Many things, many actions, some good, some bad, but my friend, what the secret of it all is… What I do doesn't matter, what they believe that's what will make it in the history books. And by then I'll be dead, who will know or care at that point what the truth is?"

"Your friends. Your family."

"My family is dead." Leo said quietly, "and in all probability I will outlive you. So I ask again, who will know or care."

"Someone might, some day."

"I hate uncertainty."

"Life is filled with them."

Giovanni said nothing; for once he had no witty response.

X

_He wasn't a doctor, not a human doctor, but he had to gamble now that his knowledge of Machoke specie would give him enough. He'd worked out as much of the venom as he could; thank God he had enough human anti-Arbock-venom to dose Leo for the Arbok's bite to not prove fatal. But when Leo had rolled to dodge the attack he'd taken a few poison needles in his shoulder, most were easy to pull out. A few others though, were in deep, very deep. He should take Leo to a hospital, should call an ambulance, but the phone lines were dead. They were probably cut by the Rockets, thank God the power wasn't out or he'd have been in even more trouble then he was now._

"_Easy." Oak whispered, trying to hold the knife steady. He'd done dissections before, but this was a thousand times worse because his subject was still living._

_And he was not under any form of pain killer. One, because it was too dangerous with all the chemicals already saturating Leo's blood, and two because what few he had were either too weak to do any good, were designed to slow blood clotting, or were not for human consumption. _

_The poison though was doing some sort of service; it had numbed Leo and knocked him out._

"_Merow!" The Meowth head butted him, looked pathetically up at him with hope and concern shining in its crystal eyes._

"_Alright, keep him calm for me if he wakes up."_

"_Meo!"_

_With shaking hands he made the first incision, and the white gloves that covered his hands were stained red as he worked out the first needle. It took only a few moments, a few hours in his mind but in truth it was only a few seconds. He put the golden needle aside in a tray, tossed it in and spotted another one. It seemed as if there were a hundred of them._

X

"You haven't had exactly the safest career either. I've been here a number of times after one of your subjects of study hurt you; it's not always the Rockets that get the one up on you."

"Could we not discuss the Dodrio incident?"

"Of course." Giovanni grinned. "But I wasn't referring to that, but if you'd recall the accident with the Snorlax, and the Blastoise, or dare I mention the Weedle incident?"

"You swore to me you'd never mention the Weedle incident ever again, that was not funny!"

"Now class, be very careful, this is a poison type very common in Pallet so it's mandatory that you all attend this safety meeting." Leo began trying to make his voice as close to Samuel's as he could. "Now as you can see this little one has a very pointed head, that's where he keeps the venom and while not fatal except those who are allergic to it, for the majority however this point packs quite a sting and itches like crazy for several days. Now they like certain types of plants, primarily broad leafy ones so avoid those, and never ever ever call them cone-heads they hate that like…"

Oak picked up one of his crutches and swung, the younger man dodged easily enough.

"At that point you ran around screaming because while you had a Weedle in its glass cage you failed to notice the other one by your foot."

"Leo, look down you dropped your wallet over there by that rock."

"Of course I did."

X

"_Ummm where am I?"_

"_My lab," Samuel said softly, he was pealing off two gloves, and focused on the task before him._

"_My arm hurts…"_

_He sounded so _normal_ innocent even, when he was anything but. Samuel swallowed, turned on the faucet and ran his hands under the stream of water. There was so much red… he wanted to get sick at the sight but couldn't._

"_I had to perform surgery on you." Samuel said at last when he was certain his dinner wasn't going to make a re-appearance. "You had five needles in your arm, it was too deep for me to pull them out by hand so I made a cut, and worked some tweezers in, and removed them._

"_You weren't supposed to see that, I'm sorry…"_

"_I wasn't supposed to see that?" Oak turned on the younger man, anger filling him. "What more is there that I shouldn't _see_ Leo?"_

"_I can't tell you that, you know that."_

"_My God, I should throw you out! I should just call the damned police!"_

"_You can't do that, they cut the phone lines."_

"_You're one of them!"_

"_I didn't have a _choice_ you know what my father is, or you know enough to guess!" Leo shook from sickness or from rage Samuel couldn't tell. "I didn't have a choice, I don't have a choice."_

"_You could turn away from it," Samuel croaked, turning back to the sink. "Just be a trainer, like you were supposed to be."_

"_What do you know about supposed-to-be's? Nothing, that's what! I was supposed to join the Rockets when I turned thirteen, I wasn't supposed to 'play trainer' as Raphael called it. I didn't have a damned choice, I swore I'd protect you and this is the only way I could!"_

"_Don't. Don't you _dare_ drag me into a choice you made for yourself young man!"_

_Leo flinched, flinched back from Samuel's rage and sank weakly back on the bed._

"_I'm… sorry…"_

"_Tell that to the people outside you killed."_

"_They weren't people, you don't know what they did, and you don't want to know what they did." Leo whispered to the ceiling. "There are no sins to describe what they did, no laws to capture it in all its twisted glory." Leo took a deep breath. "Anyways I didn't kill them, my Pokemon did."_

"_The gun shot…"_

"_She fainted from fright." Leo said soothingly._

"_Your Machamp is digging a grave for them, I don't know where Nidoking is, and Meowth is sleeping in the corner their by the swab bottle." Samuel swallowed hard. "The second you are able… I want you to leave."_

_Leo only stared at him, pain in his eyes, but mixed in it understanding._

"_They won't bother you again, after this mission goes down as a total failure, when they find out that the Rockets were killed, they won't bother you again for a long time. They'll assume that you trained the Pokemon here as guards." Leo closed his eyes. "The only reason I'll come back is if I hear that they are coming back, that or if you need me for anything else."_

_Samuel tried to remember if the girl had died, if there was blood around her, but he could not, and there was no way to tell now. And there was no way he could remember._

_As if reading his thoughts Giovanni whispered. "I didn't kill her."_

"_You would have killed the leader."_

"_In my condition, I couldn't have killed a fly. It was all bluff Sam, all a bluff."_

"_You expect me to believe that."_

"_No," Leo sighed. "It's what I believe, what I have to believe."_

X

"You always get the upper hand on me." Oak sighed, as the Weedle jokes ran their course.

"Professionalism, after all that's what being a business man is about, taking and keeping the upper hand is the name of the game."

"First with Chess, then with verbal jabbing, you have defeated me, and I yield."

Giovanni chuckled; Oak was walking with him to the door.

"Leo, you made a promise to me long ago… are you going to keep it?"

"Samuel, have I ever betrayed you yet?"

"No, but if you consider it, it's been almost as much as betraying yourself as if is betraying me in those circumstances."

"Then if I must, to keep my word to you, I will betray myself." Leonardo Giovanni whispered. "Samuel, you only doubted me once, and I came through for you that time despite the pain your doubt caused me."

"I never knew."

"That was one of the things I never wanted you to know. Your approval, your friendship, means the world to me. Now I have three odd favors to ask before I leave on my helicopter, whose existence you so doubt."

Oak snorted. "I don't doubt it, not from you. You'll go down as being the strangest eccentric millionaire in all known history. Flying in helicopters, at your age…"

"So says the man who rode a Fearow last year in stunt flying on his birthday."

"Well you were right, it was worth it, even if I did it just once…. And are you spying on me again?" Oak sputtered. "I thought I told you…"

"The newspaper, several websites had pictures as well, you were, after all, hardly discreet."

"Alright, I am a stubborn strange old man, what do you expect, after all I was exposed to you a great deal."

"Hugely funny," watching Giovanni make it closer to the door you could almost see the man picking up his arrogance and pride he'd left behind, fitting it into an armor that nothing could crack. "Concerning the favors: One, I would like to know when Ash and Gary are in Pallet, tell them a Leonardo is interested in a fight with them and then call me up, it's not too far from here to my Gym, so I expect that the longest they'll have to wait for me to arrive is a day at most, persuade them to wait. The second… After today I am going to be making some preparations to withdraw from the... various organizations I am involved. For your safety only call me to tell me the trainers have arrived, to do otherwise might put you in serious danger. The third, will not make sense until after I fight those two younglings of yours, do not dwell on it now, and tell any one of it on your life."

"Leo, I don't like all this mystery."

"I'm asking you to trust me, one last time Sam, then I'll never ask again so help me God."

"Alright, one last time." Samuel sighed.

"When they say their lies, when they say I am dead, don't believe them until they find my Persian."

"Leo," Oak firmly grabbed the younger man's shoulder. "You're scaring me by talking like this."

"I don't mean to, and as I said earlier, don't worry about it."

"What are you going to do?"

"I can't tell you that, and I can't stay a moment longer. Goodnight old friend, take care of yourself."

"You too."

"Don't I always?" Leo said a bit bitterly. "Don't worry Samuel, I'll be back again sooner then you would probably like."


	8. Battle between an innocent and a sinner

_A/N: Edited all spelling errors!_

The Innocent and the Guilty

Chapter 8

The innocent and the Guilty- Giovanni

The phone rang, not the visual phone but an old fashioned voice carrying phone. A woman picked it up, blinked at the strange voice on the other end. Ask no questions. That was the rule here, don't remember who called after telling the Boss about it, that was the rule. But this strange request on the other line would stick in her mind for a while. She knew all who called, recognized the voice to be able to put the person through the proper line, but for once she didn't recognize the voice or even who the man was asking for.

"Is there a problem Miss Aru?"

She jolted in her chair, she'd been dithering, openly panicking, and like the few times this had happened before he saw it and came out of his office. She shivered, despite being dressed in a warm orange suit, despite being one of the most handsome men she'd ever seen, the man before her made her shiver. It might have been the control he radiated, the cold expressionless mask that served as his face, it might even have been the fact that she'd seen him physically overpower a Trainers Machoke when it had gone wild and started attacking him instead of Giovanni's Pokemon. Whatever the cause she always shivered when he looked at her, and cringed back when he spoke, though he had hardly said a harsh word to her, had never rose his voice at her while she had worked for him. Gathering the remains of her courage she put a muffling hand over the phone and looked to her employer.

"Sir... do you know a Leonardo? It looks like someone transferred a call through to you when it was supposed to go to someone else."

"Put him through to my personal line, I'll sort this out on my own." He paused, watched her flick a few switches and the phone in his office began to ring. He let it, watched her with cold black eyes for a long moment. She'd dealt with men who looked at her in lust, challenged such men, but there was nothing of that in the man's eyes. There was no passion in him, none at all.

"Miss Aru, cancel all my appointments for the next seven days, take a... weeks vacation if you will, I imagine I wont be needing your services again until that time has elapsed. You may leave after you finish those cancellations."

Then he was gone, he ducked into the office and the shrill cries of the ringer went dead.

She frowned, that was strange for him to suddenly up and cancel a day's appointments much less a weeks. She wondered, for just a few minuets what was going on, but the first rule of her job came back to her.

Never ask any questions.

So she didn't, he paid her well enough for her to kill any of her natural curiosity, she kept quiet and just did her job.

X

"Samuel," Giovanni paused his greeting long enough to close and lock the door behind him. He cursed a bit under his breath as the phone's line tangled with the Persian shaped paperweight on his desk, fought it free and went to his chair. "I take it they've arrived?"

"Yes," There was a hesitant pause. "Gary is here, and Ash is supposed to be here some time tomorrow."

"Thank you, I'll be there in three hours."

"Leo, that girl sounded terrified."

"She's an on edge woman Samuel, and it doesn't help that it's her first week at the job. I need to get going." Giovanni then hung up, cutting off Oak's sputtered protests, then ripped out the cord out from the phone. He knew Samuel all to well, in his anger at Leo's high handed treatment he'd call back to pry a fuller explanation out of him. If there was no line, no way to get through however Samuel would give up, eventually. He stepped out of his office, pulled out his cell phone and even as he walked out the door was putting in a familiar set of numbers.

"Miss Aru."

He could feel her shaking, but did not bother to look up, he pulled out a pair of shades that would hide the dark rings around his eyes.

"If that man calls back seeking to speak to a Leonardo Giovanni, tell him there is no one under that name working here."

"Yes sir."

X

If arrogance was smoothed out of that voice it might be pleasant. He stared at the adolescent who recalled his Arcanine, watched, waited. No excitement stirred his ice blood, this was as all the others had been, boring, plodding. The boy was predictable, calculating, and obsessed with setting up the right odds so that he would win. An Arcanine, a Rydon, both defeated with only a few barked orders and a few second's time. This wasn't a challenge; this wasn't the one he sought.

"Your grandfather gave you such high credentials." Giovanni said, watching the brown haired boy's expression through his screen of shadows. "You have done nothing more so far then slander his name with this... show of ineptitude."

"Hump, it's not over yet old man."

Leo looked over to the side lines, Samuel's lips were twitching up a storm. Obviously the boy was getting his just deserts, his ego was too over inflated and this stinging defeat is what it needed and hadn't gotten in so very long.

"Hold it." He put a hand up, the boy hesitated from releasing his third and final Pokemon. "I'm going to give you a bit of an edge boy, don't waste it. Nidoking, return." He pointed his Pokeball at the creature and there was a flash of red light and the poison type disappeared. "Persian, let's go."

Sparing a second to rub the leg of his pants Persian trotted forward and then sat facing the young trainer.

"I can only use two Pokemon, to recall is to surrender, we are now on even footing."

"Your crazy old man. A normal type huh? Alright, Machoke let's go!"

Persian spared his opponent with a bored glance, yawned into an upraised paw. Leo smiled, the boy sputtered in rage at the show of arrogance on both their parts.

"You think your something else huh? Let's see how you take this. Machoke, hyperbeam!"

An orange light surrounded the fighting type; Giovanni nodded to his Persian then stepped out of the direct line of the attack. He didn't even need to give the order, they'd seen this too many times before.

Like a silver bullet Persian shot across the clearing, jumped over the entranced Machoke. Ignoring the child's cry of disbelief that the Persian could run so fast, Giovanni found a large rock and sat down. It was over, all over before it had even began, and he was deathly bored of it all.

Claws sank into the Fighting type's back, screaming the Machoke staggered forward, his head thrown back in it's primal expression of agony. The orange glow around it's mouth became a beam, that beam arched into a monochromatic rainbow and ripped up only a small span earth and the rest of the energy slashed into the sky startling Pidgy and other flying types into taking to the heavens. Samuel flinched, was probably wondering how many of them were going to be shot down by more hyper beams. There wouldn't be enough time for that. Glee sprang into those blue eyes, grinning Gary ordered his Machoke to grab Persian and perform seismic toss. Strong arms snatched Persian, claws flailed, the pearl white Pokemon left lines of red across the face, the arms, and the thick chest of the Machoke. Grimacing in pain, too loyal to let go, the Machoke gripped Persian's mid section and made on sharp turn on it's heal. They spun once, twice, a parody of dancers; it became less like a dance and more man throwing a disk. The Machoke let go.

"You gunna call him back before he falls?" The boy sneered.

Giovanni did not bother to reply, watched as Persian made a sharp twist in his hips and forced a sharp turn, another particularly painful looking wrench that only the fluid feline specie could manage and even as he was flying backwards he was facing the stunned Machoke and trainer. Paws hit earth, claws scraped against the ground, leaving small furrows and ripped up clumps of grass and soil, the hind paws dug in, and fighting the considerable force behind the throw Persian threw himself forward.

"Cross chop!"

Charging the Persian leapt into those descending arms, took a hit that threw it back to the earth. Giovanni winced in pain as Persian smashed into the ground in his side. Claws scrambled against the soft ground, ripped the natural carpet of grass, and on it's side it scrambled out of the way of a descending foot that would have stomped the pearl white creature into the next life. Taking a second to get to it's paws so the pads were touching the ground rather then the side, Persian darted out of the on coming foot. Wormed his way between the large feet and shot between the legs.

"Behind..."

Persian let out a deafening scream, a shrill cry that cut to the marrow of bone, and to the center of the heart. The sound rolled over the Machoke, unthinking the creature clapped its hands over its ears. Gary was yelling for all he was worth, giving orders, giving orders to the unhearing. The sound rolled over Giovanni, he took the attack without flinching, even as Oak and Gary were squirming and they were merely clipped by the sound waves. Claws slashed across the face, teeth burrowed into the flesh and ripped, tore. Untouched by the sight of blood Giovanni watched as the boy recovered from the Screech, still calling on his Machoke to fight, until the unfortunate creature staggered back from one particularly hard slash and they could all see the extent of the injuries. It didn't have much of a face, the natural red lines that rand down the arms were lost in the crimson striped that raking claws had left, the belly and shoulders sported a handful of gapping wounds that were left by razor sharp teeth.

"Good God! Machoke, enough!" Lining up the Pokeball with the bleeding fighting type there was a flash of red light, and it was gone.

Leo stared into those shimmering blue eyes, there was no passion in him, years and years of calculation, of living by the odds had turned his blood to ice. Gary cradled the Pokeball in his hands, stared at horror at the red that ran across the field, and at last looked at him.

"You didn't stop... why in God's name didn't you stop? You saw what that monster of yours was doing and you didn't stop!"

Persian plopped down on the cool grass and proceeded to groom himself, to clean off the blood, indifferent to the child's cries. Giovanni stared at Gary for a long moment, his expression still as a dead man's. Having seen a fair number of dead in his life he knew and respected the stillness the dead could offer.

"The failing is not mine, I am attuned to my Persian, if he were hurt I would have called him back. Do not expect me to keep my eyes on my Persian and have anything left to spare for your... pets."

Gary ignored that, did not respond for a long moment.

"I did... everything right."

"If you had, you would have won." Leo responded calmly. "If you had done everything right you would have won, it's that simple."

He relaxed against the embrace of the stone, watched Persian clean himself with only minor interest. If Gary did or said anything else Giovanni didn't pay it any heed, the boy had lost, and had lost in such a way that made him no more memorable then any other trainer who challenged him. He wasn't what he was looking for, was an insignificant arrogant brat that unfortunately shared the same blood as Samuel.

"Come on Gary, I'll tend to Machoke in my lab." Oak stood, looked to Giovanni, the younger man could feel those eyes bore into him. "Do you have a place to stay for the night?"

"Yes," Leonardo did not look up from watching his Persian, "don't I always?"

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

X

"That was harsh, but... necessary I think." Oak said as he sipped from a cup of tea.

"It amazes me he didn't learn something so elementary when he was earning his way into the league." Giovanni replied, he put a generous glop of sugar and honey to the mix, not able to stand it plain.

"We might sound like two old men pattering away over a spot of tea grousing about the good old days, but the gym leaders have changed, and in my mind not wholly for the better."

"Hmm..." Giovanni watched the noon sun stain the tree's leaves gold. He was sick of gold, sick of green, and weary of crimson. "And the reason we sound like old men pattering away over a spot of tea might be because we are?" Giovanni tossed the remains of the cup down in one swallow, ignoring how it scorched his throat. "So your grandson, he went on another journey?"

"Yes, and I think he has his priorities shifted around a bit. It wont be so much an effort to make this a string of victories and cover himself in glory as it will be to learn what he did wrong, what he's doing wrong." Oak smiled, albeit apologetically. "I'm sorry I used you somewhat to ram that lesson home, words just weren't cutting it."

"When someone is given everything they ever really want and need, when they are intelligent, and have not tasted the bitterness of loss, betrayal, or, foul chance, they tend to turn arrogant." Giovanni said philosophically. "And better me then someone who would really hurt the boy, if he learns it now, well and good, if not, that's his problem not mine."

"Compassion and indifference in the same sentence are a strange combination Leo."

"Not so strange for a Giovanni, Samuel, not so strange at all."

X

"Hey Tracy, have you seen Professor Oak?"

Both men winced, as the boy's question was yelled and it was highly probably everything in a five mile radius heard it. There was a pause, someone else probably giving directions, then a chirped.

"Thanks!"

"And at last your late pupil arrives." Giovanni looked up from studying the bleak rock choked terrain.

"Ash is always late." Oak chuckled. "They day he comes early I'll know the world is ending."

"Interesting name, he favors fire types then?"

"You'll find Ash is... different then Gary and most other trainers." Samuel replied, a playful glimmer in his eyes. "He favors all types of Pokemon."

Giovanni rose an eyebrow but Samuel had said as much as he was going to it seemed.

X

"Hey Professor Oak, how are you?"

"Well enough Ash, thank you for asking."

Giovanni sized up the child; probably fourteen, fifteen at most, he had black hair, and black eyes. The boy wore a hat of some type, a hat suiting some sort of sporting event, not too knowledgeable of sports he did not recognize the logo. The boy, Ash, sported a normal t-shirt and pair of jeans, both were rumbled, stained, showing signs of travel and hard use. The boy practically bubbled with energy, and the Pikachu on his shoulder was much the same, offering Samuel a enthused "Pika pika!" in greeting even as the boy's cheer washed over the aging professor and seemed to take some of the years from his eyes.

"Ash, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Leonardo Giovanni." Samuel pointed him out at last, not that the boy hadn't seen him and was curious about his presence but someone had rammed the basics of manners down the boy's throat so that he waited until Sam introduced him before cheerfully offering his hand.

Gingerly Giovanni took the hand in his own, allowed the boy to grip his hand. The child's grip was firm, dry, and somewhat warm, but then the gloves might have had something to do with that.

"I'm Ash Katchem, just call me Ash!"

"I prefer to be addressed as Giovanni."

"Oh and this is Pikachu."

He introduces his Pokemon? Leo almost laughed at that, but by the look on the boy's face he expected him to respond. Giovanni nodded politely to the Pokemon, all too aware that Samuel was smiling and that this was going to be the beginning of a new line of jokes aimed against him. Wonderful.

"Pi pikachu!" A small yellow hand reached out, a mimic of the boy's gesture.

Leonardo managed to not cringe as he let that small paw wrap around the first two digits of his hand.

"Professor Oak said you were interested in a battle." The boy said brightly.

"That I am." The man replied coolly, "Oak has told me a bit about you and I am interested to see how much of it is true."

Ash blushed just a bit then only said. "I'll prove what I can."

_See, what did I tell you?_ Samuel's gaze seemed to say.

"We shall see," He said, as much to Samuel as to the boy. "We shall see what you have in you."

X

Black tinted gold in the sun, it rained down, poison tipped needles from the horns were deflected by a storm of green. Summoning vines from its side the animal plant hybrid pushed off the ground, threw itself backwards away from the rain of needles. Roaring, the purple behemoth of stone with poison for blood charged forward; snatched the thin vines that were trailing behind its smaller foe. The creature who had summoned them, who was a part of those vines yelped in pain, then managed a loud cry as its earth armored foe dragged the creature down to the earth. Gasping in pain it summoned a flurry of green, a hundred thousand leaves to slash, rip, and tear. Most were turned aside by the thick skinned Nidoking's armor, those that hit home were ignored, as the Master spoke and must be obeyed. Up went the vines, a green arch, the end of that arch wailed and was smashed like a living tip of a whip into the hard earth. Again and again this was done, each impact with the earth made the boy flinch in pain, flinch at the cries.

"Bulbasaur, use solarbeam!"

A green glow streaked with gold engulfed the small creature. Even as another violent jerk of the vines brought it up, and threatened to smash it down. They spent a moment gauging the light, the golden green light. In a heartbeat it poured down tip of the bulb that jutted out of the creature's back, which was warning enough.

"Let it go!"

Hopefully that would lessen the accuracy of the attack. Yes, even as the creature was sent into the light it would speed up the spreading of that powerful attack, but that was a sacrifice that they were going to have to make.

"Ice beam!"

Steam formed around Nidoking's jaws, white clouds. Those jaws parted, and a rain of ice and snow poured out from those fangs like a winters gale from the mouth of a cavern. Howling cold cut through summer touched air, and from above imbued by the essence of golden life and spring sun came the heavens. Bitter cold met gentle warmth, as winter's touch bows the green to brittle red and garbs it in trains or white death does the green break through the blankets of ice and defy it to become life. Death met lift, like two hands the beams clasped. The silver blue cold beam sank down a few inches the golden green beam rose, and they touched, brushed each other...

Nidoking roared as the light pierced his sensitive eyes, as it snaked between thick scales and made the nerves under burn in agony, as light burned away the shadow touched poison that was necessary for life...

Bulbasaur howled as his lungs were filled with stinging cold, howls turned to coughs as the air was sucked out of him, as life became a little harder to cling to. Limbs fell heavy tangled, vine withered and twisted with tangled confused limbs.

A speck of green fell, it was insignificant, his Nidoking staggered, eyes glazed in pain, still the Pokemon stubbornly refused to cry out in pain past his first roar, shook his head and looked up with unseeing eyes for a foe that was not coming.

"Enough Nidoking, return!"

"Bulbasaur, I gotcha!" Ash ran back, leapt, and smashed into the earth, the pale shaking grass type in his arms.

"Bulba..."

"Hey you did the best you could... uh oh that looks bad."

"Bul?"

"Pika?"

Threads of green, threads of silver blue writhed in the air; beams had become a twisting pulsing orb that writhed as the conflicting energies strived to overcome each other.

"Bulbasaur, return!" Ash decided that for now the match was over, he dove behind a boulder.

"Pika!"

He covered Pikachu as much as he could with his own body, faintly aware from what felt like a world away of someone else crouching besides him, putting themselves between him and the flashing lights.

X

The explosion set the flying types in the area to wing, and from his sanctuary from a cluster of boulders Giovanni felt the temperature drop violently then rise. One second he could see his breath, the next it was scalding hot. He held his Persian in his arms; put himself between his oldest friend and the ragging chaos beyond the thin screen of earth. There was silence, punctured by the soft whisper of sand tapping against the earth; it stretched until his nerves could no longer tolerate it. He stood, staggered out from behind his sanctuary, and stared at the world about him. It was touched with the madness that only extreme contradiction could bring. Icy veins ran with the blood of green. A digit thin, yet bursting within its confines was vitality, life. The vein's of ice were on his side, they spider-webbed out until they reached a roughly circular span of unchanged rocky ground. On the other side were rolling spans of green, blue lines cut through the life, a mark of death upon the back of spring, that thinned until it met the sharp jagged rocks.

"Pi?" A small yellow head poked out from behind a boulder that was covered in green, the creature spotted him standing besides an ice covered rock and made a few excited cries of "Pi pika! Pika pika!"

"Owww..." Slowly Ash crawled out and joined his Pokemon, looked at the world around him and stopped breathing.

"Ash... are you alright?"

"Fine." It came out as a whisper.

Shaking, pale, Samuel stepped out from behind the boulder, brushed dust from his white lab coat and stared at the battlefield. He didn't breath for a long moment and his eyes nearly doubled in size.

"Tracy would love to see this." Samuel said at last.

"You can fetch him to gawk after we are done, if you will be continuing boy?"

"I've fought in weirder places." Ash said quietly.

They all stood, stared at the strangeness of the world around them. It's contradiction, of life and death, yet the beauty in both. Giovanni felt a slight flash of guilt, if they fought with all they had this place would be destroyed. Guilt did not kill a man however, had that been a truth he would have died long ago.

"A change of the rules, we finish this as a one on one battle."

Ash nodded, that would spare the terrain somewhat, and it seemed as if this rash and passionate child wanted that as well as Giovanni did. They had an understanding of sorts in that.

"Samuel, if you would leave now. I will be by in at most an hour to fulfill my promise, as we agreed those years ago."

"Leo... what game are you playing?"

"A final one, go on Samuel, I'll be by in a bit."

"Pika?"

"Persian, let's go."

"A Persian huh..." Giovanni rose an eyebrow as the Pokedex was pointed at his Persian. Not liking the thing the pearl white Pokemon hissed, and flexed his claws into the ice covered ground. Information on the specie, type, and habits of wild Persian's rang out in the dullest mechanical voice he had ever heard. "So it's a normal type."

"His specie is vulnerable to fighting types; if that's the information you want."

"Nope, that's not what I wanted to know, it's the first Persian I've seen so I figured I should put it in 'Dex for the professor. Pikachu, let's go."

"Before we begin, Mr. Katchum." Giovanni stared at the child. "I believe you should know who I am in full besides being an old friend of Professor Samuel Oak. I am the Gym leader of Viridian." Ash's mouth opened but before he could say anything Giovanni met those warm black eyes with his own dead ones. "I am also the highest ranking member of Team Rocket, the top and final one of its generals."

"Pikka!"

"What!"

"This battle will decide... many things, most important, what happens to the Rockets. Prepare yourself boy, and hold nothing back, for I will not."

"There's no way I'm going to lose to you!"

"Pika pika chu!"

Giovanni's lips curled in a slight sneer, the expression which his Persian wore. Scorn. Mocking bitter scorn, for the enthusiasm, the cries for justice. There was no justice, only power and manipulation. But if that was the truth, then why must he prove it over and over again, why must he beat a hundred, thousand such young enthusiasts to bloody pulp if his way was truth? There was no time for seeking that answer, the boy's anger seemed to pour into his rat anger became electricity and electricity fueled power.

"PIKA!"

Searing hot yellow light smashed into the ice, sent shards of it flying. Those shards caught the light of the sun, of the lightning, and blinded his Persian. He however was not so weakened.

"Hard right!"

Claws scrapped across ice. With an interesting mix of scrambling and pushing off the earth the feline managed to get out of range of the second attack.

"Pikachu, save your electricity, quick attack!"

An arrow of gold slashed across the grass, left a trail of dust across the rocky earth, and upon the ice the speed increased even more, but for speed was sacrificed control. Paws slipped, and on it's belly the creature went across the ice. Turning to face the wail Persian lifted his right fore paw, his claws were black points that raked down and drew four lines of red across the face. The real force behind the attack, the swing where the claws gained the speed to rip through skin and bone however was blunted. Not by skill, or a well placed dodge or blocking paw, or even a toughened hide, but by the terrain. The paw pushed off the Pikachu, pushed both combatants apart and set them spinning across the ice. Shaking his head, squinting up his eyes in pain Persian hissed, dug his claws in and standing on the tips of his claws managed to stop spinning. The Pikachu squeaked as it spun, fought to get to its paws and lost them due to his wild motions.

"Oh man..." Ash cringed seeing the blinded Persian slowly stalk after the Pikachu, by the way the creature was licking its lips there would be no repeat of the misplaced slash. "Pickachu, push off with you tail, and swim like Lapres does!"

"Pii... ka!" Squealing with delight the yellow rat managed to get the push done well enough, the paws however scratched at the ice and only made him spin. "Ka!" There was only one rock on that field of ice, and the rat hit it head first. Hearing the thump Persian turned; felt his way across the ice coated ground to his prey.

Scrambling up on the rock the Pikachu looked down at the Persian, a slow smile curled that chubby face, a smile that found its way on the young boy's face.

A wreath of small hissing bolts of electricity surrounded the creature, then like a pulsing electric sun they spread out. Unlike a sun they gouged the earth, like the sun their touch turned ice to water. Smiling, for he had expected something much like this Giovanni gave out a string of orders, guided his Persian away from the ice to the island of rock. Not one to let the Persian walk out of a potential trap the boy predictably called out for his rat to cast a bolt of thunder as Persian all but crawled to the sanctuary of the earth.

"Bubble beam, arch it!" Giovanni roared.

A stream of water, of bubbles, poured from Persian's mouth, surreal was the amount made, no enthusiastic group of children with a soapy water could make as much. The electricity veered from Persian, was drawn to the water and snapped across the arch, even as it did so Persian was in full retreat. Predictable so far, but not above employing uncommon strategies, Giovanni smiled slightly, this was defiantly going to be a harder fight then the last.

"Now!"

Kicking off the rock, jumping, small yellow paws hit the ice, jumped again, right into the arch of water and dissipating electricity. Steel became the tail; steel caught the electricity and like a blazing sword brought it down. There was no way to dodge. Persian hissed in pain, staggered, and then sent his assailant flying back into the violent riposte. Black claws leading they sent crimson lines across the belly of his foe. For a long moment both opponents looked at each other, both trainers stared at each other, gauging each other's expression in hopes that it would reveal something about the fight, a glimpse into strategy, into the mind. Giovanni offered nothing, had stared assassins down without breaking a sweat, without giving anything away. The boy was a mess of conflicted emotion, admiration for his opponent, respect for his opponent, yet the knowledge of _who_ he faced brought in the greatest conflict. Under that emotion, which was so easy to read, there was nothing, no plans, only a hope and determination. Nothing useful in that, they both looked away and it was with a hint of humor in him that Giovanni saw that the rat and his Persian were doing the exact same thing.

Perhaps Oak wasn't as crazy as he thought with that human mannerisms rubbing off on tamed Pokemon theory.

Hissing the rat found its paws, rubbed the cut on its belly with an almost numb dazzlement, then sharply shook his head. Persian snorted, flicked an ear and stood watching as much as his burning eyes allowed waiting, and showing nothing of the pain he was in.

"Make him come to you." Giovanni hissed, his eyes slits as he studied the angry rat before him. "It's the boy's move now."

Persian bared his impressive teeth, the tip of his tail flicked back and forth as he waited. Had it been in the boy's head to think he could have let off a thunderbolt, Persian could not have dodged that in time. Not to say that dodging was the only answer, there was always a counter, always a way out. Perhaps the boy did think, just in a different way, did not dwell on obliterating his foes in waves of screaming bolts of lighting, but fought in different ways. One word, not expected, but easily planned for. Leaping up, tail leading, tinted silver under the power of the attack the Pikachu aimed the strike at the back of Persian's head. Rearing up on his hind legs Persian blocked the tail with his forepaws, shoved them apart and that final shove brought Persian off the ice and onto the rocky sanctuary. Dropping his dignity for a moment to gloat Persian... well he purred and patted the nice solid, not slippery, section of earth with a paw.

Snapping a few annoyed "pika"s the animal found its paws and stood right in the center of the icy expanse.

"Ha, now you can't get Pikachu and your Persian's a sitting duck in the open like that!"

"Really, how little you know. Persian, if you would disillusion the boy."

Persian let loose a scream that cut through all defense, set the skull to reeling in pain. Giovanni stood through it, the yellow creature less then five feet away from him curled into a tight ball as waves of agonizing pain slammed into his skull. Smirking the Gym leader did not flinch, refused to show his pain no matter how bad it got. He stroked the onyx band, slow lazy strokes, there was something however different to his touch. It was subtle, the boy did not see it, he imagined though Samuel would see it before he left and perhaps understanding would come to him in the darkest hours of the night. By then however, all would be irrevocable.

He stood in silence, the pain his only companion.

X

"Come on... just a little more... there!" Taking a deep breath the Persian stopped it's screech, flexed it's claws into the ground. It was less then a second's pause, but it was enough. "Now, charge it!"

Staggering, shaking off his pain even as he ran Pikachu slipped on the ice, spun forward but veered to the side. The screech only clipped him, he was able to keep running and sliding forward. Yellow paws hit earth, the Persian hissed, claws tipped in red sprung out from the white velvet fore paws. Now on even footing, now both stood on the solid earth, and they looked at each other ears slicked back, teeth bared in equally determined growls.

I can't believe this guys a Rocket, I've fought Rockets and the only one's whose Pokemon are kinda loyal are Jessie and James. You don't shrug off pain, you don't listen when you're in pain, unless it's to someone you trust. He trusted Pikachu, trusted his friend to know when enough was enough, to surrender if he needed to. It was absolute trust, unbroken loyalty, just as Pikachu trusted Ash to come every time no matter what to save him when anything bad happened Ash turned to Pikachu when the going got tough. Somehow, through miles and battles and more days spent getting lost then going in the right direction they managed, and most of the time they managed to win too. But it wasn't the winning, only a few times was winning the goal, it was the experience, for the fun of it all.

Just to see where the next bend on the road went, to see the top of the next hill that was lure enough to get them going.

But with the Rockets it was money, destruction, and defiance. The lure was always profit, the mark of their passing always destruction. The goal, victory, no matter what the cost.

Such things made no trust, allowed no friendship, and yet hidden there were glances of respect from crystal eyes, an instinctual trust and obedience even when in pain.

"Pikachu... tail whip!"

From across the field, he could have sworn the man in orange's lips twitched, just for a second.

Confused, but trusting, Pikachu turned on his heel and swishing his tail back and forth singing out a few mocking notes that traveling with Ash he'd heard all the time.

The Persian looked at the yellow butt waving only a few feet away, then looked at it's master who made a slight gesture. Out came the claws.

"Turn around and bite!"

A blur of white hissed through the air, white teeth sank into a white paw, the response was expected.

Howling in pain Persian whipped its paw up, pulled it out from the downward arch and snapped it up. Pikachu squeaked in shock, lost his grip and went flying up in the air.

"Now, thunderbolt!"

"Persian, give it a taste of its own medicine!"

Two jagged lines of yellow met. One rose from the earth, the other fell from the heavens. There was an explosion and dust went flying everywhere. Coughing Ash squinted into the cloud of dust, it settled and there, both panting, staring at the ground in utter exhaustion, stood Persian and Pikachu.

"Persian, quick attack!"

Hissing the Pokemon became a blur of white, and before Ash could even tell Pikachu to look out his friend was smashed into and sent flying to land on the grass. Grunting Pikachu hit the ground, rolled across the grass and with a weak "Pi" managed to get to his paws.

"It's over boy." Giovanni barked, "Give it up, you can't win."

"Pikachu, it's your call."

The man stared at him, was waiting for a response, but he was too far to have heard the Ash's words. Shaking his head Pikachu forced his legs to stop trembling. He stared up at the man who called himself the leader of Team Rocket.

"PIKA! Pi Pikachu! Pika pikaa!"

"That's our answer!" Ash snapped, "We don't give up, not till it's over."

Ash was too far away to hear Giovanni's response, he was aware that the man's lips moved but it was too far for his ears to catch. But not for Persian, or even Pikachu's. The evolved Meowth purred at whatever he heard, and Pikachu blinked in surprise. Then there was no time to wonder, no time for questions.

"Qui-"

_Not_ this time! "Agility!"

X

Defensive, aggressive, this boy was balanced in using both tactics and making up a few while he was at it! Giovanni shivered as a thin thread of interest and anxiety mixed with his ice blood. This wasn't a fight just about power and routine. It was intelligence, luck, power; it was as it had not been in twenty years. It was uncertain, the outcome was uncertain. He had confidence that Persian would be fine, that he could take care of himself should things become too hot, the fire too intense, but his confidence that they would come out of this victorious was now gone. It was a good feeling. He allowed himself to slip a little, allowed a slight smile at the juvenile antics of the tail whip. He had lowered his guard and they both had paid for that bout of stupidity.

"You were right Samuel; there are still challenges in the world."

He stopped caressing the ring, turned his full attention to the fight, where it for once, justly belonged.

Hissing, whirling around Persian was trying to follow the rat's movements.

"Patience, wait it out" He barked, and that was enough, Persian sat on his haunches and at another order closed his eyes.

"What the? Perfect, Pikachu quick attack!"

Eyes still closed Persian hissed, using his ears he heard the attack, swung his paw and smashed it into the Pikachu's skull claws fully extended. Screaming in pain the Pikachu hit the ground, rolled. Blood fell into its eyes, gathered around the ears, crimson blinders and a crimson halo. Shuttering the Pikachu found its paws, shook off the hit.

"Finish it, bubble beam!"

"That's _it,_ Pikachu thunder!"

X

"Pi... Ka... Ch.. cha?" Pikachu cocked his head to the side as no sparks gathered around his checks. He rubbed them, tugged on them, but nothing was making the electricity come out.

Oh man they were out of electricity, this was bad!

"Persian, bubble beam!"

The Persian hissed... then cocked his head to the side and made a low chagrined sound in his throat.

Out of water, out of electricity.

Both trainers shifted uncomfortably, considered their respective Pokemon. Unable to do special attacks meant that the Pokemon was running out of energy. Both weighed the options, considered what was left and what was right. No longer being ordered to fight, the two Pokemon sighed and sat wearily in the grass, panting, showing their exhaustion. They'd get up, like they had several times before this and keep fighting, but it was getting harder for them to do so.

Enough was enough, he had all the badges he needed for the League, the old badges didn't expire or anything so he didn't need anymore, and he already had the Viridian badge anyways. There wasn't any point. The whole thing had started out as a friendly challenge and his anger had pushed it way too far.

"Pikachu, enough."

"Pi?"

"We're going home. It's over Giovanni, you win." Ash walked across the field, picked up his weary friend and cradled him in his arms.

"Pika..." Sighing in relief Pikachu closed his dark eyes, rested his head in the crook of Ash's arm.

Giovanni said nothing, watched him, and Ash paused on the road home.

"I don't care what you say, you aren't a Rocket. A Rocket wouldn't have let me give up, wouldn't have offered me a chance to back out when things started getting rough."

He did not turn, did not pause to hear if the man had something to say. Ash knew the truth, his truth, and that was all he needed.

X

"Well?" Samuel all but pounced on him, demanding information on the fight.

"It went… well…" Holding Persian in his arms Leo stroked the silken fur, he took a chair and pulling out a bottle poured the potion on Persian's side and rubbed it into the wounds. "He fights in a different style then most trainers."

"You are being evasive." Samuel growled, crossing his arms in front of his chest and favoring him with what he thought of as a fierce glare. Giovanni did his best not to laugh; the 'fierce' glare was more comical then vicious.

"Yes, I am being evasive." Leo smiled for a heartbeat, then dropped the smile. "Take a seat, I've tended Persian long enough to be able to do so and talk, and we have much of that to do. Or rather, I do, I will only ask you this once to remember your oath to me, no matter what I say, do not forsake me. Not like everyone else…"

"I promised, a promise is a promise." Samuel said simply and at that Leo chuckled.

"We shall see."

X

Samuel trembled, stared at Leo, not believing, not wanting to believe.

"You killed your father?"

"Persian did, he poisoned him while Raphael was torturing me."

Leo sipped on his tea, now gone cold long ago, but he didn't taste it, was hardly aware of the world about him at all.

"At that point there was no turning back, not that there was any chance to break away on hand. Raphael kept me under constant surveillance, various Rockets would approach me, harass me, all in an effort to toughen me up. Any I traveled with were attacked, so I learned to tend to myself and avoid other trainers. It was a Rocket who had been assigned to watch over my Mother who told me she was dying. At that point I abandoned my journey and went to her, she begged me to not get involved with my Father's work, but at that point, I decided I had no choice. I became a Rocket grunt at thirteen, sent reports to them on and off, picked up the various tools of my trade. Pick pocketing, picking locks, that sort of thing, I was good with my hands, and with Meowth there was little chance any would sneak up on me. While taking the odd and end jobs I continued with my journey, that's the real reason it took so long for me to get all the badges, because I couldn't run from town to town like others could, I had duties to attend. I had to be transferred from town to town carrying out assignments all the while I was training for battle, hunting down wild Pokemon for my own collection, and Raphael was there every second slowing me down, trying to dissuade me from continuing, trying to get me to give up playing both sides. He was right on one count; life would have been easier had I just stayed with the Rockets and not done both."

"Why?"

"Kill the old man and get out; that was my plan. It's not how I went. I became even more tied to the Rockets after his death. They knew me, Raphael had been subtly grooming me to be his replacement, had been so damn smooth about it that even I didn't think about it until years later. By the time Raphael was done flopping around on the floor I knew there was no way I could live as an honest Gym Leader. When you kill someone, there is a line you cross that can't ever be re-crossed. The knowledge that you are capable of killing; it becomes temptation, seduction, because life and death, that is the ultimate power. And you know how much I cherish power."

Samuel shivered, looked away.

"I assassinated all of my Father's old allies, broke down the very structure of the Team, and rebuilt it, dropping more of the brutal practices. You may have noticed a change in the reports, valuables being taken instead of lives. The rapes, senseless murders, those I stopped, the rest… Well Team Rocket is at heart a criminal organization, that's where it gets its power." Leo stared at the bookshelf, could not make out the titles if his life depended on it.

"You were trapped?"

"I gave you my circumstance; do you see a way out?"

"I don't see a safe way out, but there is always a way out."

"The only way out Samuel, is death, and for whatever its worth I still value my life. I warned you, almost all my life I told you over and over again. I am a cold, calculating, bastard who cherishes his life over that of most others. I am capable of murder, capable of torture, I may not enjoy those things but the ability is still very much a part of me, they are weapons in my hands that I have used before and I may use again."

"Who?"

"Who have I killed personally, by my hands?" Samuel nodded and Leo shrugged. "What good would their names do? Would you sent funds to those they knew and are still living to sooth your guilt? My decisions have been mine, not yours, not anyone else's. You are not party my deeds, I've taken a hell of a lot of pain over the years to keep you out of this." Seeing the look of stubbornness in his older friend's eyes Leo sighed. "A few disobedient Rocket grunts, the whole staff that my sire picked out of a lot of murderers and torturers. In one case a group of police officers during a gun fight, and there was a child who got in the way during a different gun fight. That was when we were fighting off Magma's first advances on the Jhoto continent. Then of course Raphael, there was Raphael."

Oak shivered at the cold empty in which Leo used to talk of killing.

"It's a shock, how easy it is, and the eyes, you may close them but they never really close. You once told me… a man who can not sleep soundly is not an innocent man. I rest with a gun in hand, have rested armed for years."

"Was it worth it?"

"No, such a life is a wasted life. You delude yourself; allow the opulence to numb the senses, to slave the guilt never knowing it is acid until it begins to burn. Yet even as it poisons, it is addictive, you partake in the strongest opium laced with the slowest working venom. Sweetness turns bitter, until it becomes only bitter and the sweetness becomes a forgotten memory. You step out in the street and dodge bullets of slander and steel; you can tell yourself it is the thrill of living on the edge. But living on the edge becomes living in desperation. And as before the blood stains your hands, even before it stained my hands, there is only one way out."

Samuel leaned weakly into his chair, stared at the man he thought he knew.

"You made a promise, unwitting of the consequences; I won't hold you to it." Leo stood, set the cup aside.

"I've already contacted the police; it will spare you and the boy some trouble if you keep quiet about what you know as it will all be handled by the time the week is out."

"What are you going to do?"

"What I should have done." Leo whispered. "Take care of yourself Samuel, I won't be coming back to save you if things go as they planed." Leo pulled off the black ring with the crimson letter in it's heart. "Don't wear this, don't let anyone se you with this, just hold onto it for me, just in case things don't go as planed, and don't forget what I said last time I came. The last part, it comes in effect now."

Leonardo smoothed his orange vest, adjusted his tie. He was capable of walking himself out, and considering Oak's current color would have to do so. Before Leo had gotten to the door though, Samuel spoke.

"I made a promise I will keep it, and I have."

Giovanni did not turn, did not seem to hear even as Oak was certain his lips had not moved to say those words. But he had spoken, and perhaps, perhaps Giovanni had heard.

X

"Professor Oak, I'm sorry I just got caught up in doing some sketches and…" No response, Tracy frowned in worry. He dashed around the house, Oak wasn't in his lab, wasn't in his room, eventually Tracy went to the study and found the Professor there. The older man was lying in a chair, eyes closed, his hands clenched around some small item that set black tinted flashes of light between his fingers.

"Tracy." Oak's voice was thick, he lifted his head from it's slump.

"Professor, are you hurt, are you alright?"

Smiling a sad bitter smile Professor Oak whipped the now dry tears from his eyes, shook his head.

"No, I am not alright, I need you…" The silver haired man took a deep breath. "To tend the reserve for me, can you do so?"

"Yes." Tracy considered calling the ambulance, but so far as he could see nothing physical was wrong.

He was as transparent as glass, as easy to read as a book and Oak smiled fondly at the young man.

"It's nothing that a doctor can tend my young friend, I… need to make a call and then I will rest."

"Alright, rest well Professor Oak."

Samuel paused at the door open door where Leo had walked through not too long ago. He leaned against the frame and sighed at nothing in particular.

"Tracy, has there ever been… something you regret not doing. And because you hadn't done it, you knew that something horrible had happened to someone you cared for?"

"No… I've never… but if you need someone to talk to."

"No Tracy, I'm sorry my friend, so sorry, but... I can't tell you about this, and you can't help me. I have to come to terms with this on my own."

X

"Ms. Katchum." Oak smiled wanly at the young woman, she was auburn haired, warm, compassionate, and seeing his pale face that compassion manifested itself in mother hen nattering. He sat as she ordered, took a deep breath as ordered, and he knew that if she had some way to hop into the screen and be at his side a thermometer, blanket, food, and medicine, in hand she would. "May I speak with Ash please?"

"He's sleeping, he came back from his match awful pale, so I had him go to bed."

"When he wakes up... could you tell him that I'd like to see him? It's very important that he come to my lab as soon as possible."

"I'll tell him your message, but you Samuel Oak should be in bed, you look almost as bad as he did."

"I'm headed there right now Delia Katchum don't play mother hen to me too." Oak chuckled, putting his hands in the air in mock surrender.

"If you'd show just a bit of sense and take better care of yourself." She scolded, a smile curling her lips. "Maybe I wouldn't have to play at being Mother to two sons, now go to bed."

"I'm well over fifty Delia."

"As if that matters, boys will be boys Mr. Samuel Oak, and you're worse then any boy I've ever met when it comes to taking care of yourself." Some of the play left her, a line of worry marred her face. "Samuel, what happened today? I've never seen Ash act so distant, he was troubled and he wouldn't tell me a thing."

"It's something a friend of mine said, he can be very cold to those he doesn't know personally and he tends to disturb people who aren't close to him. I'll help him through it, don't worry, just don't forget to feed him before he comes over. He'd attack the Snorlax's here if he isn't fed and my refrigerator is still recovering from the last visit."

"Of course I'll feed him." Her eyes twinkled. "And I'll try not to over do it so you don't have to roll him back when you're done."

"Thank you, good night."

She frowned, concern in her eyes when he did not laugh at their joke, she was going to say something, but he rather rudely hung up on her. She would hopefully understand and forgive him.

Resting in his pocket, with a mind of its own was his hand and a ring that he rolled between his nervous digits.

He wondered if he was worthy of that forgiveness, considering what he knew and kept silent about, he worried that he might no be worthy of any forgiveness ever again.


	9. Crimson Dreams Oak and Giovanni

To my readers,

Don't you feel brilliant when you get something mixed up? I'll edit chapter eight to fix the names of the towns and the name of Ash's mother tomorrow. I think I've got it right in this chapter, if I don't could someone give me the names of the town Giovanni has his gym and the proper spelling of Ash's last name, thanks.

Kasan Soulblade

The guilty and the innocent

Chapter 9

Crimson Dreams- Giovanni

The walls were black, the floors thick crimson. He stared at the room a long moment, took in the black and red glory, before him. The crimson letter with its black backdrop stared back at him. Three strokes made the "R" three generations for it to rise and three for it to fall. There was a nice symmetry to it all. They of course sat behind him, or did he sit to his back to them? It didn't matter, only this moment mattered, this last moment. He caressed the arm of the chair, sorted the last of his business, walked the final mental avenues of regret, shifted through the folders that existed in his head to see that indeed all debts were cleared. For once they were, and he smiled into the crimson laced darkness, stroked the leather for a long moment to just savor the softness under his touch. He would savor these last few moments in this room, leave them wreathed in his fire so they would never forget. These last few moments of peace were his, and he would never forget it. He sighed, drank in the dark with his eyes till it burned. The dark was his, as would be the crimson.

He had made them wait long enough.

He let go of the peace, gripped the arms of his chair, one last fleeting caress, and then allowed his feet to push off of the softness that was a thick rug exotic rug of Arcanine pelt under his chair. He turned, slowly, slightly melodramatic his slow turning, yet he liked their tension. He liked seeing the anxiety on their faces ease into impassive expressions that masked a mind being slowly devoured by their fear.

"Gentlemen," he whispered softly, and they flinched, all who entered this room flinched when he spoke in a whisper. "I understand you are all busy with your various operations in Kanto, Joto, and the Isles, but this is a pressing matter that requires your immediate attention. This is a matter of filling in a position of high rank."

Excitement flashed in every eye, there was only one man's death who could cause a gap significant to lead to the gathering of the Rocket heads. Only one man's death besides their '_beloved_' leader.

"My second met an unfortunate accident this morning."

He was stating the obvious, but they hardly cared, dreams of attaining greater power filled their eyes. He might have smiled mentally, might have allowed himself a mental iota of humor at the irony of this situation. He could have dropped this announcement and left one gun in the room and let them do the work for him. Unprofessional that, so he'd do it himself. He had not done this route in a long while, had employed a different tactic several times these recent months. He had been quietly killing off valuable members, then letting those remaining turn on each other for the position. The leaders were the skin of the foundation beams, and when the skin was stripped away there was only the rot left and exposed. They were turning on each other now, like a pack starving Houndour thrown a bone they turned on each other to gather that which the master had stripped of all but the Ghastly of flavor. The heads would not know this, or would shrug it off, a series of small insignificant in fights and murders were the norm for such an organization. But insignificant or not they added up, and had one of the heads bothered to talk to each other they might have found the timing a little ironic. They might have been justly worried instead of lost in the animal rapture of budding ambition. He watched those empty soulless men shiver under the ecstasy of the power he offered one of them; he wanted to see it go its natural course before he acted. Pleasure faded, died into scheming, plans gathered and were formed in those dead eyes and hid away.

He looked at them, loomed over them in his large backed chair, it was almost a throne. Almost but not quite. He smiled at them, saw their scheming and approved, or so it was in their minds that the smile meant approval. Little did they know he smiled when he planned, when he savored the plans and the goals and felt them come together with a beautiful click in his mind.

"Now," He brought up is glass, sipped at the crimson wine.

The crimson was now his, the black of treachery and hate and the death that followed passionate murder had been his. It was now his birth right to grasp the crimson and so he had, and they would drown in it a warm wet red death.

The red was his at long last.

"This brings a few problems. If I leave you to your own devices you'll all kill each other. Despite how much that would appease your underlings and give them the chance to fight and kill amongst themselves I mustn't allow that. This could very well destroy us, and the Rockets must survive long after our deaths, after all who would keep the weaklings in line if we weren't here?"

They laughed at that, it was a running joke. The strong take from the weak and they were the strongest of all.

Yet he had met a weakling, had fought a supposed weakling, had been victorious by virtue of mercy, and that fights unexpected conclusion had decided many things for him.

The strong would pass and the weak would inherit, they would be free of the shackles that the corrupt slapped upon their limbs, they would be freed, and they would have the world.

Better that then this crimson and black order with a pulse of blood and death, he let his gaze sweep along the scarred faces of those around him. Some sported physical scars; others had scars in their eyes, in their souls, marks from a bleeding out of emotion, of life, of passion.

We are the machines that ran the world, the soulless calculating abominations, and it is time the gears stopped turning.

He would be the one to make it stop; at long last he could do as he dreamed those foul dreams where the world ran red and he sat on a bloodied throne.

The crimson was his.

He pressed a button on the table in front of him; cries rang out from around the gathered Rockets. Steel clasps bound arm to arm, and leg to leg. They thrashed against the chairs, a few cursed as they could not move an inch from the chairs. He stood, rubbed the pale band of skin around his middle finger, pulled a gun from his belt and slowly loaded it in front of them. He walked to the first man, he couldn't even recall the bastard's name and didn't much care for the oily features. So he watched, almost entranced as the barrel of the old gun spun back into its proper place, he lifted it up, pulled back the safety, there was another click and he smiled at the weapon. It was perfection, old and tried and loyal and true, he could ask for no better partner in this task.

"Please Boss, please, ya wouldn't kill yer ol' buddy."

"I have one friend, and only one, in this I spare him and the world he loves any more pain."

He didn't bother with more talking, pulled the trigger and watched as the first die. Certain no man could function with his skull's contents scattered about the room he turned to the second Rocket and listened to the animal pleas, to the animal cries that came from a cornered monster.

X

"Dad!" A woman's voice nearly screamed at him on the other end of the line, she was pale, shaking.

"Sweetie, calm down, what's wrong?" He tried to sooth, to calm her, but her hysterics were beyond that.

"Dad... turn on channel eight, you have to do it now!"

She was inconsolable, so he promised he'd turn the TV on now and she only hung up when she could see he was walking towards it. He spared a moment to hunt up the remote and go to the prescribed channel, stared blankly at the burnt out house and hit the sound button. Before even five seconds had passed he wished that his daughter hadn't hung up, as it was he was alone. He let the remote slide through his numb fingers, sank weakly into the couch and good thing it was there or he'd had been sitting on the floor.

"…vanni was found dead in his basement of his Viridian west side home. Police came on the scene, the heads of Team Rocket were found dead along with Leonardo Giovanni. Having served as a leak to the police on and off for years he confessed to the agent that he had proof that the Rockets were suspecting him to be a double agent. He called up the said agent at seven a clock this morning to say 'all accounts have been settled' and after that enigmatic message dropped out of sight. Fearing for his life the agent along with a group of police officers stormed his home and went down to the lower levels. Inside they found a grizzly scene of nineteen dead men and women in Team Rocket uniform pinned to their chairs and all sported fatal gun wounds delivered at point blank. One of the Rockets appeared to have freed himself and there was proof of a gun fight. It was determined that Mr. Giovanni was killed by a gun shot through the heart, the Rocket's leader, identified by the insignia ring on his left hand, had died of blood loss from a wound taken in the fight. Before bodies could be recovered a freak explosion went off setting the room aflame, the mansion was burned to ash before fire fighters could arrive in the scene…"

X

He smiled, satisfied, it was a good harvest, a good crimson gathering. He leaned back on the throne, skin slicked with blood, their blood, and took a deep breath to settle his edgy nerves. Bits of human, mainly shards of skill and grey matter were tossed around the room like a macabre child's toys. They slumped forward or were thrown back, still, limp, dead. At last they were all dead.

He looked about him and decided that all was good.

He set the bomb's timer to three hours that was enough, and wasted a second of that time to catch his breath. It had been hard heavy work to do this, his hands hurt, were an interesting mix of hurting and numb. He took a large draw from his glass to take the edge off of the pain, then abandoned the red streaked leather chair.

He picked his way over one of the bodies in an orange suit, looked at the brown hair tangled in the widening crimson pool. Nudged the face down corpse with a boot.

"You were always a fool, honor was your undoing. Or at least that's how it'll go down in the history books. You'll get your blaze of glory and a blaze for good measure. No proof for all the questions and no answers for all the quires. They'll make us a hero for that."

He decided to cut an hour off the bomb's time, just to be safe, it'd take an hour for them to get permission to get here, an hour for them to get to this room, just enough time for them to see the flames come. He took the glass and wine bottle with him for good measure.

X

"Professor Oak."

Oak looked up, stared at Ash's somber face. He knew then, Leo had told the boy the truth before he left as well. Oak offered his arms and Ash fell into his embrace, burrowed himself into his mentor's arms and cried.

"I don't know what to think, I don't know what I should even feel!"

Oak felt a fist close over his heart, Leo had said those same words to him. It had taken a week, a week after his Father's death to say those words and crumple into his arms. All Oak had done was let the boy cry himself out in his arms, held him up, and when he was strong again had let him stand on his own.

That had been his mistake, had he offered some words he might have been able to stop this, to pull Leo out from his father's poisoned grasp. He had thought his words poor, and they were, perhaps they were even wrong, but he did not check them this time as he had so long ago.

"I once knew two men Ash. There was a trainer, a Gym Leader, he was hard but compassionate. Capable of caring for his Pokemon and for others, he had a deep passion for what he did and a wisdom that those who live in hard times gain. When the time was needed he could properly ram a lesson home to other trainers who were making deadly mistakes, and he did so. Other accused him of malice, but he was not malicious, he could be vicious, but there is a difference. He was a good son, loved his mother and father deeply, but that love was perceived as a weakness by his father and so it was stripped from him. The son turned on the father and though the father died the son lived on with a troubled mind but was still a good man at heart.

The other was troubled, seeing purity die every day of his life. He was beat for showing love and happiness and… when there was someone who could have pulled him out of it that person fled from that task. And because of that failure of the man who saw and did nothing all goodness in this man seemed to die. The man became cold, calculating, and incapable of expressing love, so much so he could no longer recognized it in others. He gave up on the world, gave up on the good that exists save one spot of light in his childhood. He held to it even though he'd looked so long and hard in the dark and saw the myriad colors in the black shadows that the light must have burned.

The first man's name was Leonardo.

The second man's name was Giovanni.

They were two men, and one man, and all the same."

Ash shivered in his arms, but did not pull away from his touch, Oak held him for a long time until the child had cried himself out. He draped an arm over the boy's shoulder, gently lead him to the study, it was a quiet place small and private where no one would enter if the door was closed. He firmly closed it, even as Ash sat on the leather chair that Leo had once favored. Swallowing his pain at the sight Samuel took his accustomed seat across from the leather chair, a battered but plush faded green chair.

"Do you want to know something Professor, he told me… he was the head of Team Rocket and I didn't believe him."

"He wasn't."

Oak leaned back into his chair, stared at his pupil.

"When he comes here he… forces himself to forget the Rockets, he let's go of being the "Boss" when he walks on these grounds he isn't Giovanni, he's just Leo the trainer from Viridian and my old friend. He might have been the "Boss" or maybe just some high ranking Rocket, but here, he's just Leo. It's all I want to remember him as. Giovanni died Ash, he told me that he would die if he fought them, and I never believed that, I told him that there was some way out, and there was, there was only one way out and in the end he took it."

"I… don't get it… was he a hero or… or a Rocket?"

"Nether, he just was, and… I think that's how he'd want it. He never could abide with hero's, called them… a few things that if your mother ever heard me hint about in your presence would mean I'd be eating soap laced food until I died."

Ash chuckled, albeit wearily.

And at that sound Oak knew that everything was going to be alright.

X

Jenny shook her head, pulled a lock of blue hair from her eyes. There was no way to tell men from ash, the fire had spread quickly, and her few moments glance in that room before it turned into an inferno had been all that they'd had. No officers were dead; they'd cleared out, and had waited, watching the house burn.

"We can do something about this!" She had yelled at her senior.

"I'm not going to risk people in that, your orders are to stay here and keep the civilian and gawkers away, that's all."

"But if we don't then no one will know the truth!"

"I have orders from HQ on this." The older man softened at the pain in her aqua hued eyes; patter her shoulder to offer a sliver of comfort. "Sometimes we don't know the truth; we aren't supposed to know the truth. This is one of those times."

X

They came with a Persian when the week was out. He'd just been able to begin his routine again, to be able to work again and they brought him the Persian. He never had shared Leo's hate for the 'blue coats' as he termed them, but he almost did at the callous disregard they had shown him. They had stormed into his office, gone through all his notes, and ripped his home apart looking for hints, information. And the interviews, he grew to hate those with an unholy passion. They prying questions that seemed not only to profane his grief but ridicule it by dragging him through thoughts of better times and then the officers began to almost scream at him that Giovanni was a Rocket and that thinking fondly on him was wrong. The pouncing on every irregularity in his stories, the endless picking apart of his words and analyzing, the accusations, oh God it was hard to survive sane through this. They had brought the Persian in that week, a week after the service, after the questions, and now looked at him in accusation. They had found nothing, he was a friend, an ignorant old fool who knew nothing, and they accused him for not seeing what signs Leo had given him that he had ties with the Rockets.

"You gave him his Meowth, it's in the records, and we need to know if this is his. Rumor had it that he fed his Persian valuables, we will need you to check its stomach for…"

"He loved his Persian." Samuel hissed to the officer. "He wouldn't risk his Persian's life to hide a diamond, or some stupid object. He never risked anything he loved."

The officer's glared at him, told him without words that they doubted Giovanni could love anything.

God, a mere accusation, a mere acquaintanceship with Leo and they were trying there damnedest to bring him down even though they were all told that Leo was just a minor backer of the Rockets.

For all they knew he wasn't even tied into them deep, and the fact that he'd turned his coat on them and paid for it with his life meant nothing to them.

He took the still Persian from their arms, held it tenderly.

"I'll check the markings, I won't cut it open. You can get someone else to do it."

"You are the residential Pokemon sc-"

"And you." He glared at them. "Have given me no peace, have harassed and threatened me, I have no reason to help you and I wont cut open Leo's Persian, he doesn't deserve that."

"It's dead."

"He was a friend, how would you feel if I handed you a knife and told you to cut open your friend to see what he ate as his final meal? I told you what I'd willingly do, and unless you are going to file an order to make me do it I won't even look at a knife sideways while you're in my home."

He carried the Persian to his lab, gently set the far too light creature onto one of the recently sterilized long tables. He stroked the sides, felt for the scars, and went very still for a heartbeat, then forced himself to continue. He parted the fur, looked for the discolored sports, opened the mouth and studied the jaws and studied the soft tissues within.

"It was poisoned."

The officer that had escorted him wrote that down.

"Is it his?"

"As far as I can tell, it is."

"If he cared for it like you said, somewhat funny he'd poison it."

Oak stroked the length of soft white fur, smoothed it back and could not feel the scars, for there were none.

"Considering what the police or anyone else would have done to him, he would have probably figured poisoning to be a gentler way."

"We aren't monsters, the Rockets are."

"Frankly," Oak stroked the Persian then gently handed him to the officer. "I can't see the difference right now. I've done as you told me, and I'd appreciate it if you left me alone now."

"He didn't protect anyone doc, he took everyone with him and they call him a hero for that."

"That's what happens, when you equate heroism with violence officer."

The man gave him a long look, wondering if he'd been insulted maybe, but the man didn't ask whatever questions he might have had. He dumped the Persian in a small bag, zipped it up, and carrying it like he would a bit of trash excused himself from the lab and from his home.

X

"It's ironic." Officer Jenny said rolling the small item in her hands, the black banded ring with its crimson letter. She stood in front of her 'boss' of sorts. Stared at the aging man and wondered at the many breeches in protocol that had occurred as the house had burned down. "A Rocket plays the vigilante so he is forgiven; the innocent man gets questioned like he is the guilty. Why are you doing this!" She stood, looking the older man in the eyes. "Why are you letting them do this, get away with this, in the police force?"

"We have out reasons." The older man looked pained. "I understand that this looks like a denial of justice, but the media is right Leonardo Giovanni has been our line into the Rocket's for years."

"You're letting him go; they'll make him a hero."

"They can do what they want, he's dead now so they can say and do what they want."

"It's not the truth."

"Sometimes the truth has to be sacrificed for the greater good; I don't like it as much as you do Jen but that's how it is."

"The ring is glass. The most valuable treasure, supposedly carved from an Onyx's heart and the carved letter etched with the remains of a Persian's gem… It's glass."

She stood, set the ring down.

"If we don't ask questions, what makes us not turn into them, what makes us different from the Rockets?"

"Sit down Officer; obviously you're going to take a hand as vigilante if you aren't told. You've got Pallet town as a permanent station, so I guess I'll have to tell you before _he _does."

"Who?"

"The man you're going to be protecting for the rest of his life, take a seat Jenny, this is going to take a while."

X

"Delia, thank you for having Tracy over for these last few days."

"It's no problem Samuel, no problem at all. I take it things are a little more settled?"

"Yes, I think that will be the last of it, thank you again, you can tell Tracy it's safe to come out from hiding under Ash's bed now. The last of the investigators have left Pallet and wont be back to question me ever again if their disgusted expressions told me anything."

"You're sounding better." Delia smiled warmly, the sparkle in her brown eyes though seemed a little subdued. Oak figured it was worry for Ash however, but the fact that he seemed to be getting better should have brought her back to her old self.

She'll feel better when Ash is completely recovered. It was just a mother's worry, that's all.

As if to confirm that thought she gave him a long look.

"Have you been eating that chicken soup I sent you?"

"Yes, Delia." He smiled, it wasn't quite a lie, he hadn't eaten at all today, but when he did eat he normally did have the soup she gave him. He had nearly lost his eyebrows and his arms when she came tromping on the heels of a group of very rude police officers to bring him two massive butter tubs filled with frozen chicken soup. One of the officers had demanded to know her business; she thanked him for being a dear and gave him one of the tubs to carry. Humming she'd brushed past them all, cleaned up his kitchen. Cleaning done she turned on the stove, set a large chunk of frozen gold that sported flecks of white and green in a pot and had kept him company while the soup cooked and the police searched his home yet again.

"And have you been going to sleep at a decent hour?"

"Yes Delia."

"And have you been changing your underw-"

"Ms. Katchum!" He blushed and she laughed warmly as in her end. They could both hear Ash gasp in horror as the dreaded underwear question was asked to Professor Oak. It was good to hear Ash laugh again, which he had started doing as he looked over his mother's shoulder and saw Samuel's red face. Tracy joined in, and they all were smiling. It would be good to have Tracy back here, it would be good to have company, and now that the police weren't going to be coming again anytime soon it would be safe to have them over.

Protecting them by keeping them away, it was an insight into what poor Leo had to do all his life. It had been hard to listen to the silence, to hear that silence punctured by only hostile voices, after enough of it little wonder Leo started to feel strained and had gone emotionally cold. The silence and the hostility found a place in the heart if it had it's way long enough.

"My last guests were messy." He said tactfully referring to the police. "I'll need a day or two to clean up. Tracy can come back in a few days and…"

"Nonsense, we'll come over and help you clean up!"

"Delia, I can…"

She gave him this flat look, put her hands on her hips, and her eyebrows arched together like looming Persian's ready to pounce on a kill.

"We are coming over bright in the morning to help you clean Professor Samuel Oak, it'll take you weeks if you tend your Pokemon and try to clean at the same time what would take us all of five hours."

"But…"

"No buts! Have your dinner and go to bed, we'll be by in the morning around nine!" Then she smiled evilly and then hung up on him cutting off his protests.

He always imagined it to be rather frustrating being hung up on; he learned just how frustrating it was first hand.

Stubborn, conniving, and vengeful, woman, he chuckled a bit at his thoughts. God he was starting to act and sound like Leo.

"So long as I don't start to _look_ like Leo, I don't have a problem with it." Samuel grumbled, picking up a pile of notes that had been hopelessly mixed up with the all the other piles around it. He toyed around with the sorting, but he was tired and couldn't quite put his heart into it. There were contradictions, and those contradictions weren't in the stories he had told the police. Leo had said "don't believe them till they find my Persian", they had found a Persian, yet that Persian was not Leo's.

What did it all mean?

His stomach growled and he put a hand over it to muffle the noise. Well if nothing else he knew what that meant. It was time to get some of Ms. Katchum's soup and watch it defrost over the stove.

The soup was good, he wasn't a fan of soups however since he ate them when he was sick and had come to associate them with being sick. Which of course he probably wouldn't do if he bothered to make them when he was feeling alright but… He sighed, set the half eaten bowl aside and went up to get a glass of water. He returned and was startled to see a very large white four legged Pokemon sitting at the table gleefully lapping up the soup he had left unprotected.

"Why did I ever let you keep a Persian here Gary?" Oak muttered to himself, trying desperately to remember the nickname his Grandson had given the thing. "Hey, get down from there… Puss!"

The Persian turned at the sound of his voice, and the crystal slit eyes glittered with humor at the name. Because it wasn't Puss, Gary's Persian did not have crystal hued eyes; Gary's Pokemon had crimson slits for eyes.

"Perrr!" The Persian sat, one paw hovering over the soup, the long white tail curled around the base of the bowl. The whole posture screamed 'My soup! It's all MINE!'

"I don't think you want to bother with that Samuel, heaven knows where that mouth has been."

"Merow!"

Samuel turned, dropped the glass, and stared at Leo who was leaning weakly against the shadowed wall. He stepped out from the shadows, used the table as a prop to walk forward, he was shaking from exhaustion. Leo pulled out a chair; it scrapped loudly across the tiles, and creaked alarmingly when he threw himself into it.

"Don't worry if you didn't see me come in, I had an acquaintance's Alakazam teleport me in, favors called for past services rendered you might say. If you're going to pass out you might want to be sitting when you do it." Leo said, favoring him with an interesting mix of concern and weary humor. "God knows I can't catch you right now considering the state I'm in."

Samuel managed to drag himself to the chair, and let his les buckle, he stared a Leo, not able to believe.

"They said…"

"I told you not to believe them." Giovanni snorted. "They say a lot of things. They wanted to turn you against me, ran you through the interrogating process like me. They didn't have the POW edge on you, so you got off a little lighter then me." Leo hissed in pain, stared at the ceiling through half closed eyes.

"You aren't…" Samuel squeaked.

"I wish I was right now… can't break skin but by God they can still cause pain…. Don't!" Leo croaked seeing Samuel meant to touch him to see if he was real. "Don't touch me… I've got more bruises then I can think about right now."

Samuel stared numbly at the battered man, and now that he could see Leo, could think about what he was seeing he saw the bruises on the face, the swollen lip, and the obvious pain Leo was in.

"How did you… they had a memorial service last… you're here but…"

"So they did…" Leo hissed but managed a pain filled laugh. "Rather funny watching your own funeral, by the looks of it no one knew quite what to say. I knew… after… what you said… that it would be safe to come here for a bit."

Samuel had spoken at the funeral, the only friend, the only one to care out of a long line of business partners, acquaintances, and family on Giovanni's Mother's side. They'd all wanted money, all wanted profit, and he was the only one who hadn't shown any interest in the wealth. He actually had insulted everyone present by saying all this opulence would have been an insult to Leo, the fact he used the familiar name rather then the formal, that too had insulted them. Exhausted, angry at being pushed around by the police and others who thought they knew Leo… he had abandoned his planed speech and had let them have a good piece of his mind. Out of all of them, perhaps he was the only one who had cried.

"You… made me think you were…"

"Did I?"

No he hadn't he'd all but warned him…

"The room, the Rockets, the fire, you…!"

"Later, not now…" Leo put his head gingerly on a pillow of crossed arms. "Hate to ask… but I need a place to stay…"

"The police…" Samuel knew Leo wouldn't do anything to put him in danger, but in his condition he might not be thinking straight.

Leo flashed him a grin, a weary grin of dark satisfaction. "I… am a business man…. I cut them a deal… they couldn't refuse. It's over… it's finally over…" Leo chuckled. "God, I can hear Raphael rolling in his grave now… screaming in fury."

Leo was passing out on the table, it seemed cruel to get him to move, but if he fell asleep there he'd probably topple out of the chair. This man, this murderer, this villain and hero, was his friend. Samuel stood, the shock was fading so that he could function a little, it wasn't as long as painful as the other shock had been, because under that shock was pleasure. He was happy to know Leo was alive. And even if he was not necessarily in prime condition he would eventually become well. For now that was enough. He managed to walk to Leo, and offered the weary man a hand.

"You turned down my couch once well you're not turning it down now."

Leo smiled, for once it wasn't a bitter twisted smile, and for once it wasn't guarded or restrained.

"Provided… I can… walk that far, I'll take that offer."

"I'll have Persian hit you with a thunder bolt if you look like you're not going to make it."

Leo grunted, but took the hand and allowed Samuel to pull him to his feet and all but drag him to the less then elegant bed. Elegant or not it would serve, and he was honestly weary of elegance anyways. Purring Persian hopped onto his belly and rested his head on crossed forepaws. Reaching out with a shaking hand Leo stroked that silken head. He sighed, let his arm go slack, and closed his eyes. For once he dreamed of something besides the crimson throne and the world that ran red with blood.

The crimson was his to take, he had taken it, and for now he had let it go. It was still a part of him, but not the preying monster that intruded on his dreams and that was a welcome change.


End file.
